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MURIDKE, Pakistan: Hundreds of students angrily protested on Tuesday as a government official took over administrative control of an Islamic charity which is linked to the militant group accused by India to be responsible for the Mumbai attacks.
The protest, organised for a second day running, came as a senior official from the Punjab provincial government, Khaqan Babar, started his job running the schools and hospital at the Jamaat-ud-Dawa headquarters.
JuD is one of Pakistan's biggest charities, but is also widely seen as the political wing of the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which India says was behind the attacks on Mumbai in late November.
About 500 students from a school in the sprawling JuD compound in Pakistan's eastern town of Muridke gathered outside the main office and chanted slogans against the government.
"The government has occupied the school illegally," they said.
Witnesses said the protesters were school boys aged eight to 18, and students from a JuD-run madrassa, or seminary.
Protesters also gathered on the main highway linking the nearby historic city of Lahore to the Pakistani capital Islamabad. They blocked the traffic for about half an hour before dispersing peacefully, police said.
They carried banners and placards condemning "Indian pressure" and demanding that the government lift a ban on JuD.
"We do not accept the taking over of our school, college and hospital. We will continue our protest until the institutions are freed from the control of the Punjab government," JuD official Yahya Mujahid said.
Pakistan, under intense pressure, cracked down on JuD after the bloodshed in Mumbai, arresting dozens of members, placing more than 120 others under house arrest including founder Hafiz Saeed, and freezing its assets.
- AFP/so
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