TLY’s power play can spell electoral upset for some parties in Karachi

Numaish Chowrangi is a traditional venue for religious and sect-based parties to stage protests, sits-in and public meetings. Starting last Saturday, the roundabout was occupied by the Tehreek Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLY) for 10 days straight.

The TLY, a relatively new Barelvi outfit, had organised a sit-in to express solidarity with its chief, Allama Khadim Hussain Rizvi, and others who brought Islamabad to a virtual standstill for nearly three weeks when they occupied the Faizabad Interchange from November 8 to 27.

When law-enforcement and paramilitary officials launched a crackdown on November 25 to disperse the Faizabad protestors, the TLY’s Karachi chapter retaliated by paralysing the metropolis by spreading its demonstrations to 40 locations across the city.

At some sites, such as Star Gate at Sharea Faisal, the protests became violent as a large number of TLY supporters armed with sticks, stones and iron rods clashed with the police and caused injuries to many people.  

Barelvi resurgence

Encouraged by its power to paralyse Islamabad and other parts of the country, especially Karachi, as well as by the number of votes it secured in two recent by-elections in Lahore and Peshawar, the TLY has been attracting aggressive Barelvi activists and supporters in droves.

The TLY was formed to campaign for releasing Mumtaz Qadri, who was convicted of the murder of the then Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer. On February 29 last year the outfit paralysed Islamabad and other cities, including Karachi, when Qadri was executed.

This time round the group was protesting against now-former federal law minister Zahid Hamid, whom they held responsible for the amendment in an electoral oath.

Registered with the Election Commission of Pakistan as the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, the TLY’s Sheikh Azhar Hussain Rizvi and Allama Muhammad Shafique Ameeni bagged 7,130 and 9,935 votes in the recent by-polls for the NA-120 (Lahore-III) and NA-4 (Peshawar-IV) constituencies, ranking third and fifth respectively.

By securing more votes than the Pakistan Peoples Party as well as the Jamaat-e-Islami, one of the country’s oldest and most resourceful religious parties, the Barelvi outfit has sent a clear message to everyone that it would not be ignored in the upcoming general elections.

The group is also eyeing Karachi and Hyderabad, where until the emergence of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement in the mid-1980s, the Allama Shah Ahmed Noorani-led Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, a key Barelvi party, used to win National Assembly seats.

The TLY claims that thousands of people across Karachi joined the outfit through its membership camp set up at Numaish Chowrangi during its sit-in. A TLY leader told The News that the outfit had already emerged as a key stakeholder in the country, particularly in the metropolis.

“Besides guarding the blasphemy laws, the group will also protect the rights of those belonging to the Barelvi school of thought, especially saving their mosques from being grabbed, and send Barelvi religious scholars from Karachi and Hyderabad to the parliament.”

In the past few days, huge banners and posters carrying the photograph of the TLY chief and terming him ‘Amirul Mujahideen’ have cropped up across the city.

The TLY has been drawing its support from lower-income Urdu-speaking neighbourhoods, such as the old city areas, Korangi, Malir, Orangi Town, Liaquatabad and New Karachi, while the city’s affluent Memon business community has been supporting them financially.

A journalist said the TLY had attracted a large number of Sunni Tehreek activists in the metropolis who helped the group paralyse the city this past Saturday. “By taking part in electoral politics, the TLY can snatch MQM votes in Urdu-speaking majority areas.”

Militant tendencies

A senior law enforcement official in Karachi told The News that the TLY’s subversive activities showed that the group had been morphing into a militant outfit.

The official said the group was recently found involved in attacks on members of rival Deobandi groups and non-Muslim communities, adding that some intelligence agencies were monitoring the activities of the outfit’s active members.

Hard-line clerics of the TLY and their aggressive stance on blasphemy issues attracted a significant number of like-minded young men to the group, he added. “They are ditching the tag of spiritualism and Sufism. If not kept in check, they could emerge as a lethal and violent militant outfit such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.”

In August a supporter of the TLY had murdered two members of the Tableeghi Jamaat, a Deobandi preaching body, after having a heated argument over some religious issues in Punjab’s Chiniot district. Both victims were residents of Landhi in Karachi. Dozens of TLY members had arrived at the Karachi Press Club this January to disrupt a rally of civil society activists protesting for the release of five missing bloggers.

TLY workers pelted stones on civil society activists and chanted slogans asking the police to file blasphemy cases against the missing activists. They also defaced the press club’s boundary walls that were adorned with murals of several progressive civil society activists.