By Beena Sarwar, Karachi, 7 January: A peaceful candlelight demonstration at Hasan Square, Karachi, urging restraint between India and Pakistan was forcibly dispersed by police today. Two demonstrators, Aslam Martin and Javed Iqbal Burki, were arrested. Police officers manhandled women and children and snatched away banners. They tore up peace placards from the hundred or so peaceful citizens who had gathered waiting for the vigil to begin. Meanwhile, other political groups are permitted to call for jihad and war.

Written information for the rally had been provided by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan to the DIG Karachi who had said that the demonstration could take place as long as there was no procession. But over 100 police officers began forcibly dispersing the waiting demonstrators before the vigil even began.

Rally organisers negotiated with police, while demonstrators stood their ground, but the arrival of ASP Ejaz put a stop to the process. Male and female police officers armed with rifles and lathis pushed and shoved the participants and started arresting them, even as other demonstrators were arriving for the vigil.

"We would like to know what the policy of our government is," said the organizers. "On the one hand they allow statements to be published by religious groups calling for jihad and openly provoking war, but when we assemble peacefully, we are violently attacked."

One of the protestors, Dr Riaz Ahmed of Karachi University, was hauled away by the police but he to break free when other demonstrators resisted his arrest. His eye-glasses were broken in the scuffle.

The vigil was organized under the umbrella of the Joint Action Committee for Peace, which includes about 30 non-government organisations including HRCP, WAF, Shirkat-Gah, Idara-Amn-o-Insaf, Aurat Foundation, Labour Party Pakistan, Piler, Pakistan-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy, War Against Rape, International Socialist Group, CPP, Pakistanis4peace.org, Citizens for Peace, and a large number of unaffiliated citizens.