Pakistan opened negotiations with radical Islamists on Monday after they released 11 kidnapped police officers during a week-long blasphemy protests against France, in which four officers were killed, the interior minister said.
Most major businesses, markets, shopping centers and public transport services were closed in major cities in response to a strike call from the Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) and its affiliated groups.
Pakistan’s PSX 100 exchange opened 500 points lower in the morning, but recovered later in the day.
The police officers were kidnapped during skirmishes outside the TLP headquarters in the eastern city of Lahore, with three members also being murdered, according to the group.
Photos of the police officers, with their heads, legs and arms heavily bandaged, were posted on social media by their captors.
“They have released the 11 police officers they had taken hostage,” said Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad in a video statement.
He said negotiations with the TLP were underway.
“There have been two rounds of talks and another is coming later in the evening,” Religious Affairs Minister Noor-ul-Haq Qadri said in parliament. “We believe in negotiation and reconciliation to solve problems.”
The government banned the TLP last week after blocking major highways, railways and access routes to major cities, attacking police and burning public property. Four police officers were killed and more than 500 injured.
Violence erupted after government detained TLP leader Saad Hussain Rizvi in the run-up to a planned nationwide anti-French campaign to pressure the Islamabad government to expel the French ambassador in response to the publication of cartoons in France last year with the prophet Mohammed.
The TLP has made four major demands in talks with the government, officials from both sides said.
They include the expulsion of the French ambassador, the release of the TLP leader and about 1,400 arrested workers, the lifting of the ban on the group and the dismissal of the interior minister.
Prime Minister Imran Khan said expelling the French ambassador would only do harm to Pakistan, and that diplomatic engagement between the Muslim world and the West was the only way to resolve disputes.
“If we send back the French ambassador and cut relations with them, it means we cut relations with the European Union,” he said in a television address. “Half of our textile exports go to the EU, so half of our textile exports would be gone.”
Relations between Paris and Islamabad have deteriorated since late last year after President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to a French history teacher who was beheaded by an 18-year-old man of Chechen descent for showing cartoons of the Prophet in a class on freedom of speech .
Protests erupted in several Muslim countries over France’s response to the teacher’s murder. The Prophet’s cartoons were also reprinted elsewhere.
At the time, Khan’s government signed a deal promising to table a resolution in parliament by April 20 seeking approval for the expulsion of the French envoy and a boycott of French products.
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