Hundreds of activists of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Jamaat-i-Islami demonstrated against the government's decision to take steps to improve trade with arch-rival India. Pakistan's cabinet last month said it approved a proposal giving India the status of "most favoured nation" in a move towards normalising trade relations between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Members including Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Jamaat-i-Islami gathered in the main square in Muzaffarabad on Friday. Protesters shouted slogans against the Pakistani government and were joined by supporters of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, an AFP reporter said. "We will never accept this decision," Maulana Abdul Aziz Alvi, local chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa told the gathering. Protesters later blocked the main road passing through Muzaffarabad city centre by setting tyres on fire.