Islamabad: Pakistan protesters led by opposition leader and Imran Khan and cleric Tahirul Qadri reached the Islamabad Parliament building in the early hours of Wednesday in their bid to force the prime minister to resign, but did not go inside.
The protesters were seen on their way to Parliament wearing hard hats and tough leather gloves using cranes and bolt cutters to move aside barricades of shipping containers and barbed wire.
Cleric Tahir ul-Qadri and opposition politician Imran Khan both want Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign.
The government has allowed protests in the capital but had previously said they would not be allowed to march on Parliament. But late on Tuesday, tens of thousands of protesters pushed aside the barricades and streamed towards the National Assembly as riot police and paramilitary forces looked on and did not intervene.
Police baton-charged Qadri's Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) protesters as they neared the Parliament.
Anti-government protesters entered the Red Zone, even as clashes took place between them and the police at Serena Chowk where they removed shipping containers, Dunya TV reported. Police was not putting up stern resistance and slowly retreated as part of policy to avoid violence.
"PM just told me he has ordered the police not to use any kind of force against the protesters as women and children are in the front rows," Sharif's daughter Maryam Nawaz Sharif tweeted.
The protesters of Khan and Qadri started separately but later were moving towards the Parliament together. Information minister Pervaiz Rashid told Geo TV that the marchers have violated written commitment that they will not enter the Red Zone. "They have women and children with them. So the government has decided to show maximum restraint. They want dead bodies but we will not give them the opportunity despite provocations," he said.
(With inputs from PTI)
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