TLP in a bid to help its MPAs escape crackdown

Apparently helping its two male Sindh parliamentarians avoid being arrested in an ongoing crackdown, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan has asked its female member of the provincial assembly to show its concerns over arrests of its workers across the country, including Karachi.

Sarwat Fatima, the TLP’s lone woman MPA, along with few women leaders, spoke to a press conference on Monday at the Karachi Press Club on Monday, saying that a number of workers and leaders had been arrested in the crackdown and the whereabouts of a large number of workers were also unknown.

Fatima said her male colleague MPA Muhammad Younas Soomro was supposed to attend the press conference, but because of some unavoidable situation, he could not attend it. However, TLP sources said law enforcement agencies had been hunting Soomro, an MPA from Lyari, and Mufti Mohammad Qasim Fakhri, another TLP MPA elected from Baldia Town.

Criticising the federal government, she said that first the government said the party’s chief, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, had been taken into “protective custody, but now we are hearing reports that the government is trying him on treason and terrorism charges”.

She said the TLP had a registered political party that secured 2.3 million votes across the country. “It seems some liberal leaders in the government want to create tension between the government and the party and generate a situation similar to Syria and Libya in Pakistan.”

The government launched the crackdown on the TLP after the group announced that it would hold a massive demonstration in Islamabad against the Supreme Court’s decision to acquit Asia Bibi, a Christian woman earlier sentenced to death over alleged blasphemy.

More than 1,000 workers of the TLP and other Barelvi groups have been arrested so far. In Karachi and Hyderabad, a large number of members of Barelvi parties, such as the Pakistan Sunni Tehreek, have also been arrested.

Since the start of crackdown, several TLP leaders and its allied groups, such as the PST, had announced that they would stay away from the TLP’s call for a countrywide demonstration on Sunday, saying that they were no longer a part or supporting Rizvi’s party.

Sources familiar with Barelvi groups said that law enforcement agencies had detained a number of members of different parties, particularly the TLP and the PST, from Karachi’s Liaquatabad, New Karachi, Korangi, Malir, Landhi, old city areas and other localities.

“After the formation of the TLP, a large number of PST members joined Rizvi’s party. The TLP used them to block roads and make their protests successful,” said a police official. Even Ahmed Bilal Qadri, son of the Sunni Tehreek’s slain founder Saleem Qadri, is a key TLP leader in Karachi.