KARACHI: Govt’s handling of Lal Masjid issue criticised
KARACHI, July 4: Various political, religious and labour organisations in the city have criticised the government’s handling of the Lal Masjid/Jamia Hafsa affair which has resulted in the death of many people and injuries to scores others in Islamabad.
Chairman Nisar Shah and General-Secretary Farooq Tariq of the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), in a statement issued here on Wednesday, strongly condemned the action against the religious forces, saying that the use of force had never offered a durable solution to a problem. The timing chosen for the action also raised serious doubts about the government’s motives, they added.
“At a time when the armed forces were supposed to help rescue and rehabilitate over 2.5 million citizens trapped in flooding, the forces were being used against a tiny religious fundamentalist group,” they said, adding that the government’s motive behind the action was to divert the nation’s attention from the its utter failure in averting the heavy loss of life and property inflicted by the rains and flooding, as well as in mitigating the sufferings of the 2.5 million people still waiting to be rehabilitated.
The LPP leaders said the other motive might be to divert people’s attention from the ongoing movement for the independence of the judiciary.
The were of the view that religious fundamentalist forces were the brainchild of the military intelligence and American imperialism that had heavily armed them during the Afghanistan war and had also extended all sorts of assistance and cooperation to strengthen their religious institutions.
The claimed that the Lal Masjid administration had been encouraged and assisted by those who were now in power.
“Now the monster has spun out of the hands of those who created it,” they remarked.
They declared that the LPP opposed the fanatic group and the government alike as both sides involved in the matter were two sides of the same coin.
PML’s views
Acting President of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Sindh, Saleem Zia has expressed shock over the casualties in the Lal Masjid clash and held the government responsible for the bloodshed.
In a statement issued here on Wednesday, Mr Zia pointed out that the government had been showing no interest in resolving the Lal Masjid issue over the past six months. “The deaths occurred due to a sudden decision by the government to use state force against the Lal Masjid administration,” he said.
He condemned that the government was promoting vulgarity across the country in the name of enlightened moderation. He reiterated his party’s belief that issues could not be resolved through the use of force and that talks were the only way to tackle such sensitive issues.
Pasban sees conspiracy
President of the Pasban, Pakistan, Altaf Shakoor and Secretary-General Usman Moazzam have said that the bloodshed around Lal Masjid in Islamabad is the result of the government’s gross negligence and an international conspiracy against Muslims.
In a statement issued here on Wednesday, they said that all those killed in the violence there were innocent people and the government could not escape the wrath of the masses as it was responsible for the bloodshed.
“A dictatorship and tyrant rulers have been imposed on the country in a systematic way and that is why the ratio of corruption and other social evils is very high,” they claimed.
The Pasban leaders alleged that the government was deliberately fomenting anarchy in the country to divert people’s attention from real issues.
They demanded a judicial probe into the Lal Masjid affairs.—PPI
