Will TLP trouble give birth to a militant outfit?

ISLAMABAD: On March 18, 2021, in Islamabad, a man called Musawwar Ali snatched a gun from a policeman stationed outside the office of Superintendent of Police City (SP City) and fired four shots in the air. His intention was to enter the Diplomatic Enclave next to the SP City’s office and carry out an attack on the French Embassy there.

Musawwar Ali, a resident of Satellite Town in Sargodha, had travelled to Islamabad via public transport. Under investigation, he stated his desire to seek revenge for the alleged insult in France to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Police sources revealed that although he was not a formal member of TLP, he was incited by the political atmosphere created in the province by the party. The man has since been charged with a terrorism offence and jailed.

This attempt on the French Embassy in Islamabad is not an isolated incident. A former senior officer from the Punjab Police’s Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) has revealed on condition of anonymity, that a couple of years ago, a man telephoned TLP founder Khadim Rizvi and told him that he was planning to kill a man he considered guilty of blasphemy. In reply, Khadim Rizvi said, “Are such things discussed over the phone?” Since the phone was being tapped, the caller was arrested, charged with terrorism, and sent to jail.

Thus far, there exists no evidence of TLP founder Khadim Rizvi and his son and successor Saad Rizvi’s involvement in terrorism, though there would be little doubt that their uttterances have been tantamount to incitement.

Although, the government has banned the organization on April 15th as a terrorist organization through an Interior Ministry notification but it is yet not clear that the government would adhere to its decision or will surrender at some later stage or not.

The TLP’s rise in Punjab occurred in the aftermath of the 2016 execution of Mumtaz Qadri who had assassinated Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer in January 2011. Qadri had leveled allegations of blasphemy on Taseer while killing him. Later, it is alleged that powers that be managed its politics and registration as a political party.Ba

Not everyone in the state apparatus remained silent about this at the time. Than chief of the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (NACTA) Ehsan Ghani recorded a formal warning about this party’s activities in his official dispatch, urging that they should be kept away from the political and electoral arena. His recommendations were ignored.

During the previous regime, the TLP knocked on the doors of the capital twice and partially paralyzed the government working and day to day life of the citizen of twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

Against the background of recent events occurring in France, the TLP has now descended upon Islamabad on two more occasions, during the PTI government’s time in office. In November 2020, the government was even obliged to sign a negotiated agreement with the party, with the then Interior Minister Brigadier (R) Ejaz Shah undersigning a commitment to discuss the expulsion of the French ambassador from the country. Slowly the TLP has gained increasing popularity on a country-wide level through its coercive tactics.

When two government ministers Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad and Noor-ul-Haq Qadri arrived in Punjab to negotiate with the TLP on April 11 , 2021 and local intelligence officials got in touch with the TLP to set up a meeting, the ministers were made to wait for two hours before being allowed to meet the TLP’s advisory council.

During the negotiations, the federal ministers showed TLP representatives the parliamentary resolution which was to be tabled, but they rejected it and pressured the government to present a resolution which made specific mention of the French government and other European countries.

Official sources say the decision to move against the TLP was taken on the 12th of April. The IGP Punjab Ihsan Ghani was immediately instructed to arrest Saad Rizvi. This directive was carried out right away, and although significant demonstrations took place in cities elsewhere in the country, the biggest reaction was seen in Lahore. Though the Punjab Police are leading the arrests of TLP leaders, policymakers’ failure to seek the police’s input for this operation resulted in the lack of coordinated effort, which would have seen more sections of the TLP leadership in various cities detained.

As a result, demonstrations by the TLP could not be prevented, and commercial activities faced extreme disruption in Punjab and Karachi.

A senior government official confirmed that the decision to ban TLP came from the highest level in the government. Vital recommendations relating to this had already been sent to the central government through the provincial government, and the interior minister made the announcement of the ban the very next day. On April 15, an official notification regarding the ban was issued.

The notification accuses the TLP of being involved in terrorism. This is a remarkable occurrence because this organization has never officially announced intentions to carry out sectarian killings, bombings or suicide attacks, etc.

It is not that surveillance was not maintained on TLP’s activities. In fact, CTD Punjab had collected a list of 108 TLP members in the province who had also been added to the list of suspected terrorists in the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) Fourth Schedule.

Individuals who pose a threat of violence, terrorism or a risk to the safety of the public are listed on the Fourth Schedule. CTD Punjab’s efforts were scuttled on Jan 11 when during negotiations with the TLP, Interior Minister Shaikh Rasheed and Minister of Religious Affairs Noor-ul-Haq Qadri agreed to strike off TLP members’ names from this list.

CTD Punjab’s officials say that following the declaration of the ban on this party, they are once again adding those 108 individuals to the Fourth Schedule list and are rapidly adding even more names to this growing list.

Meanwhile, in an unprecedented and worrying development, the already-banned terrorist organization Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has not only announced its support for TLP immediately after its ban on April 14, but publicly threatened to take revenge for “each drop of blood of the TLP members”. This endorsement by the Pakistani Taliban for the TLP is also remarkable in that this is the first time that a predominantly Deobandi organization (TTP) is being seen to forge an alliance with an exclusively Barelvi organization (TLP).

Former police officer Tariq Parvez, who is a prominent Counter-Terrorism expert and National Counter-Terrorism Authority’s (NACTA) founding chief, says, “In the past, Sunni militancy comprised Deobandi and Wahhabi parties. Barelvis had no connection with it. Even if a Barelvi was drawn to militancy, it would be in an individual capacity. TTP’s support of the banned Barelvi organization TLP is an attempt to diminish the scattered character of militancy among Sunni factions and set up a joint target. This is a very dangerous development, and we will have to focus on it most seriously. Civilian forces, more than military ones, will have to play a role in this.”

The most important question now is whether the freshly banned TLP, will formally opt for the path of militancy and violence, or attempt to remain within the system. The experts are divided over whether or not the TLP will opt for the path of terrorism. Mujahid Husain, prominent journalist and author of four books on terrorism, says, “TLP has definitely opted already for the route of terrorism, and no one should have any doubts about that. They have already verbally demonstrated this during the Faizabad sit-ins, and now they are demonstrating it in practical terms all over the country”.

According to Mujahid Husain, they have been afforded a lot of space in the past, and they are fully cognizant that they will not be given importance unless they resort to violence. They have opted for the route of violence not only at the national level, but even the international level. In Germany, a TLP sympathizer attacked a newspaper office, and the Pakistani involved in the recent attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine (which published the controversial cartoons) in France ascribed to a similar brand of thinking.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Amir Rana, a renowned expert on counter-terrorism, author of numerous books and director of the Pak Institute of Peace Studies, has a different view on this: “It may be that the banned organization TLP will avoid using traditional tactics of terrorism and instead employ protest and violent demonstrations to struggle for its political survival. The banned party’s future is also dependent on its vote-bank and how the powers-that-be assess its potential utility in the future."