The leader of Pakistan’s hard-line Tehrik-e Labaik (TLP) religious party died in hospital late on November 19.
A spokesman for the TLP said Khadim Hussain Rizvi, 54, had been rushed to hospital in the city of Lahore earlier in the day after complaining of a fever and problems breathing.
No other details were immediately available.
Prime Minister Imran Khan was one of many to offer condolences to Rizvi’s family in a Twitter post.
On November 16, Rizvi and more than 1,000 TLP supporters camped out overnight to block a major highway into the capital, Islamabad, to demand Pakistan downgrade diplomatic ties with France over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
The party called off its sit-in protest on November 17 after the government agreed to discuss its demands, including the possible expulsion of the French ambassador to Pakistan and a boycott of French products.
The row has its roots in a October 16 knife attack in France in which an 18-year-old man of Chechen origin beheaded a schoolteacher who had shown pupils cartoons of Muhammad in a civics lesson on freedom of speech.
French President Emmanuel Macron has since defended the right to publish cartoons, including those deemed offensive by some Muslims, triggering protests in several Muslim countries.
