Shoe thrown at Zardari in UK, PPP on Pak rampage

Aug 09, 2010 - AGE CORRESPONDENT |

London/Islamabad

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari’s five-day visit to Britain ended amid fresh controversy over a shoe-throwing incident at a PPP rally in Birmingham on Saturday, which was vehemently denied by Mr Zardari’s delegation.
British newspapers and Pakistan’s non-official media reported that a 57-year-old spectator had thrown his shoes while Mr Zardari was speaking at the rally. However, he failed to hit the President and was reportedly led away.
Coventry-based Sardar Mohammed Shamim Khan was quoted in the British media as saying that Mr Zardari’s speech angered him so much that he spontaneously decided to unlace his size 10 leather shoes and hurl them at the Pakistan President.
“I could feel the anger brewing up inside me as Zardari talked about floods in Pakistan,” the Mail on Sunday quoted him as saying. “He is a disgrace and I had to let my feelings be known in a way he would remember.”
Back in Pakistan, infuriated activists of Mr Zardari’s PPP erupted in riots, arson and rampage across the country over newspapers and TV stations reporting the incident. Newspapers with reports or pictures of the shoe-throwing were looted from hawkers on Sunday and cable operators forced to block independent TV channels beaming videos.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/26816" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-37ab67eaeff857c9e07055ea04d858b8" value="form-37ab67eaeff857c9e07055ea04d858b8" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85492163" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>