Giving in to the demands of a banned outfit Tehereek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), the government of Pakistan on Tuesday announced introducing a resolution in parliament on the expulsion of French ambassador & quashing all the cases against TLP. The government has reached a deal with the banned organization after a marathon round of talks.

TLP was banned last week when its members staged violent anti-France protests across the country. The violence had taken huge proportions in which oil truck was seized, petrol bombs were thrown at offices, tear-gas shells were pounded to quell the protesters. There were also cases where TLP protesters were holding police personnel as hostages, and acid bombs were thrown in police stations.

The protests were triggered when French president Emmanuel Macron had defended the rights of the Charlie Hebdo magazine to republish cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad, an act deemed blasphemous by many Muslims.

Armed with rifles and other weapons, two French Muslim brothers, on January 07, 2015, had forced their way into the offices of the satirical weekly newspaper, Charlie Hebdo and had killed 12 people and injured 11 on the issue of cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad.

With regards to the Charlie Hebdo attack, and the recent anti-France protests by TLP, Pakistan parliament had said that it condemned the resurgence of blasphemous & Islamophobic acts by mischievous elements in some parts of the world. It also warned against the “unlawful propagation” of apparently blasphemous caricatures of Islam and its prophet Muhammad. Pakistan had also taken note of the hate-mongering by leaders like Emmanuel Macron. The decision to side with the banned outfit TLP comes as the latest development in Pakistan’s opposition to the freedom given by France to its media.