In the aftermath of the Army Public School (APS) attack in December last year, which killed scores of children, a 20-point National Action Plan (NAP) was incepted haphazardly to counter terrorism. Immediately after the attack, Maulana Abdul Aziz, the cleric of Lal Masjid, defended the attack on APS, which prompted protests from civil society demanding his immediate arrest. However, he was never arrested. The cowardly maulana, also notoriously known as the burka maulvi, went to his village to avoid arrest but he was soon reinstated as the cleric of Lal Masjid.
Upon questioning the government’s inability to arrest him, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar brushed responsibility off by saying that Maulana Abdul Aziz had offered a written apology and that arresting him would have taken focus away from the government’s resolve to end terrorism in the country. The remarks by the interior minister were absurd, as it has shown the level of seriousness and the government’s intent to counter extremism in the country. It has also exposed the government’s lack of consensus on identifying the abettors of terrorism as terrorists.
Lal Masjid clearly stands in violation of point five of NAP, which relates to strict action to be taken against intolerance, sectarianism and extremism, and point 11, which stipulates a ban on the glorification of acts of terrorism. The Lal Masjid’s cleric, Maulana Abdul Aziz, seems to be immune to NAP for peculiar reasons and continues to glorify horrific acts of terrorism through his powerful media campaign and mobilisations of the mosque’s students. On November 14, after the Friday sermon, Maulana Abdul Aziz vowed to take out a rally from Lal Masjid to demand the imposition of sharia law in Pakistan, about which he has been issued a warning letter from the magistrate’s office stating that such an act would be in violation of section 11 EE of the Anti Terrorism Act (ATA) and would be arrested for doing so. It has to be seen how the police will tackle him should he take out this promised rally. There is a reason behind why the Lal Masjid gets so bold and has easy ground upon which to hold its activities: it has been provided it by the state’s intermediaries, with no exception of the honourable interior minister.
It should not be forgotten that this is the same institution that threatened to use suicide bombings if the authorities tried to stop its vigilantism, which had started to plague Islamabad back in 2007. Suicide jackets and stocked weapons were found from the vicinity after the authorities took action against the mosque. In September this year, nephews of Maulana Abdul Aziz, Haris and Haroon, were apprehended by the police after they were caught with illegal weapons and army uniforms. What is more disturbing is that recently the Jamia Hafsa school of Lal Masjid invited Chief of Islamic State (IS) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Showing the connections the Lal Masjid brigade has with IS operatives, it is a dangerous precedent the government is setting by not taking any action against this institution over its terrorist affiliations.
It should be noted here that the security forces, in a report titled, ‘Activities of Maulana Abdul Aziz’, forwarded to the interior ministry, said that the Lal Masjid has links with various terrorist organisations and land mafia. Furthermore, the maulana has a hand in organising the Ghazi Force, a militant group facilitated by the followers of Lal Masjid. The report, which has been shared with a mainstream newsgroup, also mentions the sympathies of the land mafia. Among the sympathisers and even assistors of Lal Masjid is property tycoon Malik Riaz and an MNA, Shah Abdul Aziz, of Karak, who was arrested in 2009 for his alleged links with the Taliban. The Lal Masjid administration also has strong relations with land grabbers who steal land from others to make spaces for religious seminaries. Recently, the village of Malpur filed a complaint with the police about the Lal Masjid administration destroying their peaceful environment because of a mosque it had tried to grab. In the complaint, 181 villagers stated that the Lal Masjid was trying to introduce in sectarian rift between Shias and Sunnis in the area, who had been living together peacefully for centuries. The report concluded that if the activities of the Lal Masjid were not checked or countered, there would be another serious law and order situation in the capital. There are serious repercussions of remaining aloof to the administration of the Lal Masjid, which has serious implications on the government’s assertion of its writ. With IS beginning to show signs of its existence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the government needs to get serious about the issue.
The horrific terrorist attacks in Paris last week sent chills across the world, particularly for Muslims based in western countries fearing blame and a xenophobic backlash for an act they consider has nothing to do with Islam. Indeed, such acts of terrorism may have nothing to do with religion but we cannot ignore the fact that the terrorists, with their enmity against the west, ‘infidels’ and also Muslim governments, (like we are reminded of our own terrorists attacks in Pakistan) prescribe to the ideology of Islamic militancy. We have our share of linking Islam with terrorism, if we are to look into the terrorist and extremist ideologies that have been infused with general religiosity here.
For the sake of catering to their demands for the imposition of sharia laws, most ‘moderate’ religious parties do not, in general, condemn any act of terrorism done so in the name of Islam. We openly host such Islamist groups and institutions that celebrate and appreciate any attack carried out in the name of Islam. They ideologically and even materialistically align themselves with political and militant Islam; Lal Masjid’s case represents the state deliberately turning a blind eye to its illegal moves. It is time Lal Masjid is revisited by the authorities to check up on its militant connections.
The writer tweets at @zeebahashmi and can be reached at [email protected]