Anti-US rally on 12th

LAHORE:Different Shia organisations have announced taking out a joint protest procession “Down with US” on January 12 from Punjab Assembly to the US Consulate in connection with killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander Gen Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi military commander Abu Mehdi al-Mohandis in an attack by the US.

They also announced that chehlum of the martyred commanders would be observed at a large scale in Lahore. This was announced by noted leaders of various organisations affiliated with Shia school of thought while addressing a press conference at Lahore Press Club on Wednesday. Addressing the media, they termed the killing of top military commanders in Iraq was not the matter only concerning with Iran but of the entire Muslim Ummah, since Gen Soleimani defeated militant terror groups like ISIS which would otherwise have threatened the security of the entire Arab world as well as of Pakistan. They reminded that Pakistan was still suffering from the horrible results of fighting a proxy war on the US dictation two decades back that caused nearly 90,000 deaths and over 100 billion dollar loss of infrastructure.

They said the Iraqi prime minister’s statement after Soleimani’s death was meaningful in which he had said that Gen Soleimani had brought an important message to normalise Saudi-Iran relations.

CCPO Zulfiqar Hameed on Wednesday assured the Shia leaders of proving foolproof security cover to their rally. During a meeting with the CCPO, Shia leaders assured him that they would follow the time and route given to them for the rally. They also assured that the rally would be peaceful and culminate at a safe distance from American Consulate.

DC Danish Afzaal, DIG Operations Babar Saeed, SSP Muhammad Naveed, SP Bilal Zafar and SP Dost Muhammad were also present.