Shoe thrown at Nawaz Sharif in Lahore, attacker gets clobbered

TIL Desk/World/Lahore/ A shoe was hurled at Pakistan’s ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif by a religious extremist yesterday during a function at an Islamic seminary in Lahore. The incident took place a day after religious extremist blackened the face of Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khwaja Asif with ink when he was addressing his party’s worker’s convention in his hometown in Sialkot, some 100-km from Lahore.

Mr. Sharif was a chief guest at Jamia Naemia seminary, Ghari Shahu Lahore. As Mr. Sharif was heading towards rostrum for a speech, a student hurled a shoe at him that hit his shoulder and ear. The student also managed to reach in front of Mr. Sharif and chanted “Labbaik Ya Rasoolullah” slogan.

The security personnel caught the student and his other accomplice who also chanted “Labbaik Ya Rasoolullah” slogans and gave them sound thrashing. Later, the two students were handed over to police. Police identified the shoe thrower as Abdul Ghafoor, a former student of the seminary, and his accomplice as Sajid. The situation became very tense after the incident.

Sharif made a brief speech in which he did not mention about the man who threw shoe at him. The religious parties especially Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan had held Sharif and his party (PML-N) responsible for making an attempt to change a clause related to finality of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in the Constitution.