Lal Masjid clerics forced operation, says government
By Raja Asghar
ISLAMABAD, Aug 1: The government told the National Assembly on Wednesday it was forced into the deadly military operation at Lal Masjid by defiant clerics, but it could not complete its story because of a humiliating halt of proceedings for lack of quorum in the presence of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.
Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao seemed halfway through his speech to wind up a three-day debate on law and order when protesting religious parties of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal alliance walked out, leaving the 342-seat house without the required quorum of 86 members though all opposition parties had not joined the protest.
It happened when the prime minister, whose administration is clouded by an intense speculation about the time of its replacement by a pre-election interim set-up, made his first appearance in the present session of the house along with Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat to find only a sparse attendance at the treasury benches.
Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain adjourned the house until 9.30am on Thursday after two MMA members came back to the chamber and repeatedly pointed out the lack of quorum, overruling Mr Sherpao’s insistence that he be allowed to complete his speech to counter three days of denunciation of a besieged government for poor law and order in the country, particularly about the Lal Masjid operation in which more than 100 people were killed and a subsequent wave of suicide bomb attacks in the capital and in the NWFP.
The interior minister particularly targeted Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the Lal Masjid deputy khatib who was killed in the operation, for allegedly provoking the final assault by army commandos that ended about six months of a virtual revolt by the mosque management and madressah militants who had sought the enforcement of their brand of an Islamic code in the country.
He recalled the militants’ defiance since January from the occupation of a children’s library to the abduction of women, policemen and some Chinese nationals, raids on shops and establishment of a Shariat court to enforce their edicts, to the burning of a government building before the security agencies mounted the operation on July 3, and said: “The government acted with great patience to the last day and tried to settle the problem through negotiations up to the last moment.”
“But they took a proactive stance,” the minister said about the militants’ defiance even after the intervention of several ministers, the PML president, some MMA figures and the ulema of Wafaqul Madaris and added that the deployment of paramilitary rangers and army commandos on July 3 to encircle the site and imposition of a curfew the following day was “provoked by them”.
He said the government could have waited even beyond the eight days of the siege when the security forces continued urging the militants to surrender and law down arms, but added that the authorities were convinced that Maulana Ghazi, who was shot dead on July 10, was shifting his stand every day and was not serious in any dialogue.
“We asked him to come out and explain his position before a court of law,” Mr Sherpao said in a reference the cleric’s demand for a ‘safe passage’ for himself that was not accepted.
The minister said Maulana Aziz, who was arrested earlier at the start of the operation, was now lodged at a rest house along with his wife and children.
Although all the 10 opposition members who spoke during Wednesday’s evening sitting lambasted the government for the present state of law and order and its handling of the Lal Masjid affair, those of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) distanced themselves from the MMA’s obvious sympathies for the militants and called for an effective policy to eliminate militancy that they blamed on policies introduced as early as 1977 after General Mohammad Ziaul Haq seized power after toppling then prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The day saw a second shouting confrontation between the MMA and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in as many days after an MMA member accused the MQM of terrorism in Karachi, but the best speech of the sitting came from Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai who called for a unified and responsible response to the latest American charges, based on a combined report of US intelligence agencies, that Al Qaeda had found safe havens in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
He called for a joint session of parliament to discuss the situation and said he feared Pakistan’s existence would be in danger “if we did not sit down to discuss the matter and did not give a responsible reply to American allegations”.
He rejected some of MMA member Maulana Ali Akbar Chitrali’s brave remarks about the country’s abilities to resist and said: “Pakistan cannot sustain American bombing for two days.”
Mr Achakzai blamed intelligence agencies for the emergence of suicide bombers.
Awami National Party member Shahabuddin Khan from Bajaur described the so-called war against terrorism as “a war against Pukhtuns” and said: “Everybody knows where are the masterminds of (terrorism), but nobody tells it out of fear?”
PPP’s Nayyar Hussain Bokhari recalled what he saw as concessions given to religious groups by authorities that made even the capital Islamabad ‘totally insecure’ while his party colleague Fauzia Wahab said a particular thinking promoted over a period of 30 years had brought the threat of suicide attacks to “our homes”.
A pro-MMA member from North Waziristan, Maulana Syed Nek Zaman, said 18 people killed by security forces on Tuesday were all local elders and ulema who were attacked while on their way to meet a religious leader and were not militants as claimed by the authorities.
