Lahore: Thousands of supporters of a Pakistan Islamist party who blocked major roads to protest the arrest of their leader also disrupted critical oxygen supplies for COVID-19 patients, health officials said Tuesday.
Major intersections remained closed in Lahore, Pakistan's second-biggest city, after the arrest on Monday of Saad Rizvi, the leader of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).
The party has led calls for the expulsion of the French ambassador, after the government of President Emmanuel Macron expressed support for a magazine's right to republish cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) - an act deemed blasphemous by Muslims.
Yasmin Rashid, a leading health official in Punjab, said the disruption of oxygen supplies during protests Monday night had been a "crisis".