Pakistan minister resigns after violent Islamist protests

Pakistan's law minister Zahid Hamid has resigned, state media reported on Monday, meeting a key demand of Islamist protesters who have clashed violently with security forces and blockaded the capital Islamabad for weeks.

Hamid "has submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to steer the country out of crisis," the state-run news agency Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) said in a report, citing official sources without giving further details.

Thousands protested in Pakistan's major cities on Sunday after attempts to disperse an Islamist rally in Islamabad ended in deadly violence, with the military hesitant to respond to the government's appeal for help.

More than 5,000 demonstrators blocked roads between Islamabad and neighbouring Rawalpindi, more than twice the number who had protested a day earlier when police and paramilitaries began a bungled operation to clear them, resulting in seven deaths and 200 wounded.

The little-known Islamist group at the centre of the protests, Tehreek-i-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah Pakistan (TLY), demanded Hamid's resignation over a hastily-abandoned amendment to the oath, which election candidates must swear.

The party says the words "I believe", used to replace the clause "I solemnly swear", in a proclamation of Mohammad as the religion's last prophet, amount to blasphemy - a highly contentious matter in Muslim Pakistan that has fuelled violence many times before.

The government blamed the change on a clerical error and swiftly restored the original format.

"Our main demand has been accepted," Ejaz Ashrafi, spokesman of the Tahreek-e-Labaik group, told Reuters.

"Government will announce the law minister's resignation and we will end our sit-in today."

The government climbdown will be seen as an embarrassing blow for the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party ahead of elections likely in mid-2018, and underlines the power of religious groups in the nuclear-armed nation of 207 million.

Islamist parties are unlikely to win a majority in the elections expected next August, but could play a major role.