<\/p>\n
Around 160 people have been arrested after mobs carried out 20 separate attacks on KFC restaurants, with one employee shot dead, the government said on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The American-founded fast food chain has become a target of protest and boycott calls by Islamist parties since the start of the war in Gaza, linking the brand to US support for Israel.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Crowds have protested outside KFC repeatedly this month, breaking windows, setting fires and threatening staff.<\/p>\n
“A total of 20 incidents occurred across Pakistan with one fatality reported. The man was a staff member at KFC,” deputy interior minister Talal Chaudhry told a news conference on Saturday, describing KFC as “under attack”.<\/p>\n
The KFC employee was shot dead at a branch on the outskirts of Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, on Sunday.<\/p>\n
A police official told AFP that it was unclear what the motive for the shooting was or whether it was linked to the recent protests.<\/p>\n
Chaudhry said that 145 people were arrested in Punjab province and 15 in the national capital Islamabad over the spate of attacks.<\/p>\n
“These restaurants source everything locally and employ Pakistani staff, and their earnings remain within the country,” he said.<\/p>\n
KFC and its parent company Yum! Brands have not responded to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
A KFC restaurant in the Pakistan-administered region of Kashmir was set on fire in March last year as protesters chanted “Free Palestine”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n
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Islamabad: Around 160 people have been arrested after mobs carried out 20 separate attacks on KFC restaurants, with one employee shot dead, the government said on Saturday. The American-founded fast food chain has become a target of protest and boycott calls by Islamist parties since the start of the war in Gaza, linking the brand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3305,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3303\/revisions\/3305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}