As Maulana Abdul Aziz becomes active again, the calls for action against him come from the civil society more than the state
Last Sunday evening, there was commotion around Lal Masjid. Outside the mosque entrance, traffic was moving slowly as many rehri wallahs, mostly Pakhtuns, were busy selling dried fruits and winter clothing. This place is close to the city’s famous Aabpara Market.
It was calmer inside the mosque. Many young people and some burqa-clad women were buying books from the old book shop set up in the premises of the mosque. For them, the escalating tension between the Lal Masjid people and civil society groups may be a matter of the past but for civil society and residents of Islamabad, the situation is becoming alarming with each passing day.
Last Friday was the third in a row when cell phone service was suspended around prayer time in the city. This is in expectation of something drastic from former khateeb Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdul Aziz, who has threatened to widen his protest campaign against the ban on him to deliver the Friday sermon. According to some reports, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had asked the mobile service providers to suspend signals around Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa since the Lal Masjid administration had called for a protest after Friday prayers.
After Pakistan Army’s Operation Silence in July 2007 against the Masjid’s declaration of Islamic Sharia, Lal Masjid came into the limelight in December 2015 after the ruthless attack of Taliban on Army Public School Peshawar killing at least 132 students. Instead of condemning the incident, cleric Abdul Aziz focused on the reasons behind it, terming this massacre a "reaction" of different policies of the state, especially against al-Qaeda and Taliban.
This moved Islamabad’s civil society activists to gather outside Lal Masjid and protested against the mosque cleric and his followers. Lal Masjid activists also reacted to the protest and that ended up in a conflict and lodging of a case against Maulana Abdul Aziz for threatening civil society activists. Following the case against Aziz, Islamabad administration stopped Aziz from delivering the Friday sermon for the time being.
Of late, Abdul Aziz has become active again and so have the protestors, especially on Fridays. "Some mischievous elements are aggravating the situation. These are people from particular schools of thought and they are trying to annoy us by launching a campaign against us. They managed to lodge a frivolous and fake case against me. The particular ‘group’ has also placed an Alam (a flag representing Shia community) at a house very close to the mosque to irritate us," says Aziz, talking on phone (he hardly comes to the mosque).
He says he had been stopped from delivering the sermon after this protest against him last year.
"The past and present of Lal Masjid shows it is a den of terrorism and extremism. It is sad that the government is quiet on this issue and is trying to push it under the carpet," says Farzana Bari, a noted civil society member. She says the state seems reluctant to take action against such elements. "An example is how the case was lodged against Mullah Aziz after a two day long protest outside the police station and despite that the accused was not arrested. The government is hiding behind the civil society instead of taking any action."
On November 8 this year, Abdul Aziz told the media that he would resume his activities. Later, he filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court for the imposition of Sharia in the country, urging for amendment in the constitution, if needed, for the early promulgation of Sharia. The government, he claimed, was violating Article 5 of the Constitution by not imposing Sharia.
Aziz claims that the Supreme Court had given him relief in all 32 cases after which he started his sermon again.
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A few weeks ago, some female activists of Jamia Hafsa, an affiliate institution of Lal Masjid, had uploaded a video on the social media showing support for ISIS and calling for Islamic system in the country. A heavy contingent of police and paramilitary forces were deployed in the areas surrounding Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa after Aziz’s announcement to restart his ‘Sharia enforcement’ campaign.
"This is the time to translate the pronounced National Action Plan and counter terrorism strategy into practice. It is a litmus test of the government," says Bari. "Mullah Aziz and his followers should say that Taliban are the enemies of Islam and Pakistan. The government should scrutinise them and change the executive of the mosque to give peace to this capital city. Otherwise this would go on."