This image from the Lahore clashes was shared 1,300 times on Facebook. Translation of the Urdu caption: Evidence of police and government brutality. Share this image and curse the Punjab government. Photo credit: PanjtanPoint.com's Facebook page. In Pakistan's second largest city Lahore violent clashes between police and supporters of a newly energized political party Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) resulted in eight deaths and left at least 80 injured. Lahore is the capital of Punjab province, and political violence here is rare. It is also the home city of the country's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif; his brother Shahbaz Sharif is the province's chief minister. Twitter users in Pakistan picked up on the incident immediately. Three different hashtags that specifically targeted the government soon spread. This post analyses these hashtags, traces where they originated from and looks at how they spread. The story behind the violence Horrific photos of women and elderly supporters of PAT being violently beaten by police quickly spread on social media, accompanied by tweets and posts from the party's chief from his home in Canada under the hashtag #StateTerrorism. It is unclear who started the violence. In the wee morning hours of June 17, 2014, police attempted to remove security barriers placed outside PAT chief Tahirul Qadri’s home and the head office of a religious organization he also happens to head in a residential area of Lahore known as Model Town. Police say local residents had been complaining about the blocs disrupted their movement. The party claims it has a court order allowing them to have the barriers. #StateTerrorism Mining for all three hashtags stopped at 9:30 p.m. Pakistani time on June 18, 2014. As soon as police arrived at the head office, the official English-language account of the party's leader, which has just under 95,000 followers, began tweeting with the hashtag #StateTerrorism condemning the police and the ruling Sharif family. When police began to bulldoze the barriers, the rhetoric continued, including calls for an uprising as he has done many times before in recent years. This is our first test, we will not bow our heads to them its only a matter of days we will bring the revolution. #StateTerrorism — Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri (@TahirulQadri) June 16, 2014 In tweets that seemed to prophesize the unusual violence, he warned that he would not be responsible if any fighting broke out. His account published variations of the veiled threat before and after the clashes. I believe in peace, but if they shed blood , the public will not be in my control. #StateTerrorism #Pakistan — Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri (@TahirulQadri) June 17, 2014 His Urdu-language account, @TahirulQadriUR, which has 23,500 followers, would go on to send 152 tweets using the #StateTerrorism hashtag between June 17 and 18. In the same time period, a total of 9,362 #StateTerrorism tweets were published on Twitter. The tweets had a total of 82,389 combined retweets. The Twitter handles that used the hashtag #StateTerrorism with the most retweets. At least 200 tweets were sent at 12 a.m. on June 17, before the violence in Lahore, with the hashtag peaking at 10 a.m., around the time the clashes broke out, with over 1,000 tweets. Frequency of #StateTerrorism tweets Some of Qadri's tweets were retweeted hundreds of times, like this one: The Sharif family has always used the police as their personal slaves and gangsters. #StateTerrorism #Pakistan — Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri (@TahirulQadri) June 17, 2014 The Twitter handles that used the hashtag #StateTerrorism the most by number of tweets. Other accounts simply tweeted the hashtag #StateTerrorism with nothing else. This appears in 12 tweets such as those from @Arslan__Sherazi, @auoazain and @Hassan23Zohaib. #StateTerrorism — Arslan Sherazi (@Arslan__Sherazi) June 17, 2014 The text “Situation is very tensed on ground,they r doing heavy shelling”Several workers seriously injured. #StateTerrorism #Pakistan” was tweeted 11 times from accounts such as @abdullahabid786, @abdulmajeedhnd, @abidmughal786, @kkminhajian & @majidhnd. Situation is very tensed on ground,they r doing heavy shelling” Several workers seriously injured. #StateTerrorism #Pakistan — Abdullah Abid (@abdullahabid786) June 17, 2014 #TalibanSharif The #TalibanSharif hashtag trying to vilify the ruling government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, even though the government is currently engaged in a war with the Taliban in the north, began appearing on Twitter in the morning of June 17, 2014. It was included in up to 1,247 tweets, and these tweets had a total of 2,866 combined retweets. The hashtag was propelled by a massive network of fake accounts.