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KARACHI, July 10: Police were put on a high alert on Tuesday as situation grew tense in the metropolis in the wake of the military operation at the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa in Islamabad.
“Security has been beefed up across the metropolis, particularly in the high security zones just after the operation was launched in the wee hours of Tuesday,” Capital City Police Officer Azhar Ali Farooqui said. Necessary security arrangements were made, additional contingents of police were deployed at the offices and residences of foreigners and other sensitive spots whereas Rangers were posted in some areas to ward off any eventuality, he added.
The CCPO said that patrolling by police units had been intensified. “We are in constant touch with seminaries in the city,” he said, adding that the law and order situation remained satisfactory.
Two-sided extremism
Chief of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUP) Sahibzada Shah Mohammad Ans Noorani has termed Lal Masjid affair ‘the worst example of two-sided extremism’.
Talking to a delegation of the Anjuman Naujawanan-i-Islam, led by its provincial leader Sheikh Abdul Wahid Sheikh, at his office here on Tuesday, Allama Noorani warned that if the rulers and the so-called clerics did not mend their ways, such incidents might recur in future. He regretted loss of many innocent lives over certain people’s personal ego.
He, however, criticised the government for taking action too late. He questioned the government’s writ, wondering that how all this had been happening in an area that was the federal capital. “How did the sophisticated weapons reach the Lal Masjid?” he asked, maintaining that indulging in such activities in such a high security zone was not possible without the connivance of the rulers.
The JUP leader expressed the view that Kalashnikovs or sticks could not bring about a change in the system.
Govt responsible
Acting President of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Sindh, Salim Zia expressed his deep grief over the heavy loss of life in the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa operation, and held the government responsible for it.
In a statement issued here on Tuesday, he termed the strategy adopted by the rulers flawed, saying that the loss of life could have be avoided had the situation not been mishandled.
“The rulers are responsible for the killing of innocent students in the operation,” he said.
He maintained that protecting life and property of every citizen was the government’s top most responsibility which it miserly failed to fulfill.
“Where were the government agencies when arms were being dumped in the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa? Even if the operation was inevitable, why did the rulers waste six months in holding talks?”
Mr Zia demanded a judicial inquiry into the whole affair in order to expose those who were behind this bloodshed.—PPI
