Lahore, Apr 10 (PTI) Continued attacks on outlet of American fast food restaurant chains by anti-Israel protesters across Pakistan on Thursday prompted a prominent Islamic scholar to call on the Muslim world to impose a complete boycott of Israel.

An outlet of an American fast food restaurant chain came under attack in Lahore by anti-Israel protesters on Wednesday, police said Thursday. The KFC restaurant in Lahore's Defence Housing Authority (DHA) comes days after similar attacks on American food outlets in Karachi earlier in the week.

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Lahore's KFC outlet was surrounded by a large number of protesters, mostly religious extremists, who pelted it with stones, shattering windowpanes and damaging some of its portions on Wednesday.

Video clips on social media showed a group of people attacking the KFC restaurant in the DHA's Phase IV but there were no police to stop them.

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According to some eyewitnesses, when most of the attackers carrying clubs entered the KFC, shattered the glass doors and windowpanes, the staff and customers ran to save their lives.

The protesters were raising pro-Palestine and anti-Israel and anti-US slogans.

A Lahore police spokesperson said that upon receiving information of the attack on KFC, a heavy contingent of police reached the spot. “The attackers managed to escape when police arrived. However, no visitor or staff of the franchise got injured in the attack,” he said and added that police beefed up the security in and around the international food chain outlets in Lahore.

He said through Safe City cameras, police are hunting down those involved in the attack.

Earlier, an outlet of KFC and another food chain came under attack in Karachi allegedly by the members of radical Islamists Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, which is spearheading a campaign to boycott Israeli products for its attack on Gaza. The latest such attack was on Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, after these attacks on the food outlets, Mufti Taqi Usmani, a prominent Islamic scholar and head of Wifaq-ul-Madaris, has called on the Muslim world to impose a complete boycott of Israel, condemning the global community, according to The Express Tribune.

Thousands of seminaries and madaris across Pakistan are affiliated with Wifaq-ul-Madaris, a conglomerate of seminaries of Islam's Deobandi school of thought.

Usmani stressed that protests against Israel must be peaceful, while warning that any harm to individuals or property is strictly prohibited under Sharia law.

“The call was made during the National Palestine Conference held in Islamabad on Thursday where numerous Islamic scholars from various schools of thought gathered to address the ongoing crisis in Gaza and Palestine,” Express News added.

The clerics blamed the US for encouraging Israeli aggression and criticised the inaction of international human rights organisations as they also pointed out the growing humanitarian crisis, with local populations being displaced and reports of Israeli attacks on medical professionals and journalists, the report added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)