LAHORE: A few dozen activists of Tehreek-i-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah (T LYR) gathered on The Mall on Saturday afternoon to court arrests, as per the party`s plan announced two weeks ago.

However, they dispersed peacefully after three hours as the Punjab government refused to arrest them.

In a press conference, just before dispersing, TLYR leader Ashraf Asif Jalali regretted that the Punjab government, after refusing to accept their hve demands, had not accepted even the sixth one for their arrest.

Undeterred by the apparent retreat of Pir Hameeduddin Sialvi, who after meeting Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Thursday withdrew the deadline he had given,jointly with the Tehreek, for implementation of Shariah, threatening countrywide closure, the TLYR remained stuck to its plan of courting arrests.

Earlier, addressing the workers, who gathered on The Mall at around 1pm, Jalali explaine d demands that the movement wanted the Punjab government to accept.

He said resignation of the federal law minister was not enough as the movement wanted to expose and punish all those who were behind the attempt to tamper with the text of oath with regard to finality of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him).

The party also wanted return of bodies of those killed during Faizabad sit-in and lodging of an FIR.

He said the party considered the provincial law minister RanaSanaullah a `violator of religion` and wanted him to resign, which he did not do.

He said the government had agreed to form a National Consultative Committee to monitor activities of the Ahmadia community, `which was busy hatching conspiracies against religion and the country`.

Similarly, the provincial government had also agreed to let mosques have speakers in all directions and make rules in this regard.

`The Punjab government agreed to these demands when it was negotiating to end last sit-in of the movement at Lahore. But, it has not conceded even one demand. That is why the movement had decided to start courting arrests 100 workers a day starting from today (Saturday).

`Though the Punjab government has not arrested even one worker, we are here to court arrest as per our promise. All those workers who were supposed to court arrest today would return tomorrow again along with 100 more workers, who were due to court arrest today (Sunday), and wait for three hours on The Mall for arrests,` he said.

`The movement wants to continue the protest so that the government knows it has to concede all the Evedemands. For keeping the protest alive, we will gather on The Mall daily for three hours (1pm to 4pm), without interrupting traffic and disperse peacefully at the end. Soon, we will designate points in other cities as well, where local workers (of the party) will start courting arrests shortly.

`Even today, some of our workers, led by provincial head of the movement, Mir Murtaza Noorani, are already there in front of Karachi Press Club to court arrests. Soon, this will spreadthroughourthecountry,` he warned before leaving the protest venue.