What Happened at Badaami Baagh on Saturday?

Pakistan is a strange country where anything can happen anytime. The country, ever since the US War on Terror started in the neighbouring Afghanistan, has been going through turmoil and the situation is getting worse every new day. The minorities in the country are being targeted by the fanatics as well as the people from different sects of Islam. Just a fewdays ago the Shia community was targeted in Quetta and then in Karachi and now the Christians were targeted in Lahore whereas a bomb blast occurred on the same day on a Sunni (Barelvi) mosque in Peshawar on Saturday.

The incident that I am going to focus in this piece is that of Lahore in which the Christian community had a blow and 170 houses were torched by a charged crowd in the Badami Bagh area. Badami Bagh is a busy place and a center of industrial activities but this Joseph Colony where the incident took place is a little away from the center of the market and is sandwiched from both sides by factories. Thousands of workers work in these factories and most of them are outsiders.

Two friends (the Christian one is named as Saawan Masih) used to drink together every night and had close friendship. It was their routine to drink together, quarrel at something and then be friends again in the morning. On Thursday night they had a serious fight that nobody is witness to and the very next morning the Muslim friend was at Saawan’s door with a few men and demanded to hand over Saawan to him as he had committed blasphemy the last night. This was a serious charge and though Saawan was not found at home, an FIR was launched against him in the Badaami Baagh Police Station under the Article 295 (C) of Blasphemy Law.

After a short while, Saawan’s house was stoned at by some men and the family immediately left the home out of fear. The contacted some of the Christian leaders and met Joseph Francis. Mr. Joseph is a religious leader and also a well-known figure in the political circles of Lahore. He decided to hand Saawan over to police SSP Sohail Sukhera was called by the Mr. Joseph at his office where Saawan was handed over to him after midnight. The SSP did not reveal the police station or wherever he was to keep Saawan because he was afraid that if the people would now it, they might even attack the police station where he was kept. He kept it a secret but the fatal error, as I should call it, was that he did not bother to cover the whole situation. Had he deployed a few policemen at the Joseph Colony as well, the incident that later happened may have been avoided.

The next day, the things looked suspicious in the area and the SHO of the area asked the Christian families to leave the place at the earliest. Within next two hours all the houses of the colony were vacated. This was just to avoid any sort of physical torture to any person but the assets of the residents were left on the mercy of the conditions. At around 1 o’ clock on Saturday, a crowd of around two thousand people attacked the colony. It is important here to mention that the colony only comprises of Christians and the place is surrounded from all sides with the factories. According to my sources, all the people who attacked the colony were the workers of these factories and no local took part in this malicious activity.

Within only a few minutes, almost all the houses were burnt in the area that total to around 170. This is shocking to note that during such a brutal activity, not a single resident was hurt and the only 15 people who got injured were all policemen. I think it will be unfair here if I do not appreciate the bravery of the policemen. Though it was the mistake of the officers of the same police department but the poor men who stood their ground under those conditions must be appreciated. However, they were not able to stop the people from torching a hundred and seventy houses of the poor minority. The number of policemen deployed was already low and it was almost impossible for them to tackle such a large and religiously motivated crowd.

A few shocking things that have surfaced so far are as follows:

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•       The entire chemical used in putting the colony to fire came from one factory only. The chemical lied there and all the mob had to do was to go there, pick the chemical up, spray it around and set the homes ablaze.
•         The same factory owner had contacted the residents of the colony a number of times to sell their houses to him but they had been rejecting the offer.
•         Police had the knowledge prior to the incident but was not able to avoid it from happening and it was only due to the criminal negligence. No doubt there were a few policemen deployed in the colony but the number was not adequate and tackling such a mob was no simple a deal.
•          A leader of a political party (not based in Punjab and trying tooth and nail to enter Punjab through any means) was in Lahore the last night and the whole matter was brought into his knowledge just one night before the incident took place but he didn’t do anything at all. In fact the same party was hyper active in condemning and immediately bringing the matter into the knowledge of the British Prime Minister.

It is also a fact that the Punjab Government was up to the task again and though the SSP had made a criminal negligence as mentioned above, the follow up of the matter was appropriate and immediately the government machinery came into work. The Chief Minister of Punjab Mian Shehbaz Sharif took the notice and within no time he suspended the relevant police officers and ordered an inquiry. More than 150 people were arrested by the Punjab police the very next day and on Sunday the Chief Minister along with some 10 MNA/MPAs of his party visited the place. He announced that the affected families will be given 200,000 rupees each and all the 170 houses will be constructed by the government. The amount of compensation was increased later on to 500,000 and last night MNA Hamza Shehbaz went to the colony and distributed the cheques among the families. There is definitely no compensation to the mental torture that the families there had to go through but at least there is some compensation to the loss that they had to suffer.

Chief Justice of Pakistan also too a Suo Moto action on the issue on Sunday and called the hearing on Monday. He displayed his displeasure over the inquiry report that the police had presented before him and rejected it saying that the report could not satisfy the court. He said that report does not put light on why the government didn’t do anything to keep the things under control when they had the prior knowledge of what was cooking in the Joseph Colony.

Protests were carried out throughout the country by the Christian community and at some places in Lahore and Karachi, they also went violent. But there was no serious damage done.

The Christians demand an immediate probe into the matter and ask the government to guarantee that no such incident ever take place with the minorities of the country. They appreciated the performance of the Chief Minister himself but showed utter displeasure over the conduct of the police and the negligence that led to such a serious ending. They opined that had Sohail Sukhera disclosed that Saawan was under police custody without letting anyone now of the exact place where he was kept, the situation might have cooled down as the people would have been pacified after knowing that Saawan was under arrest.

It is a good thing to mention at the end that the people arrested by the  Punjab Police are going to be tried under the same Article 295 (C) of the Blasphemy Law under which hurting the religious beliefs of any community is a crime and is punishable up to 10 years. Christians in Pakistan have always been peaceful and have been living in the country since 1947. A few incidents may have taken place but by and large the community has remained safe. Only during the past few years there have been repeated incidents of correct/incorrect allegations of blasphemy. The leaders of the community believe that the growing extremism in the country is not just limited to the minorities but these spineless murderers do not spare even the Muslims who do not believe in their (extremists’) brand of Islam.

The Nation reported: Bishop Dr Azad has said that the meeting with CM Punjab was positive and their all demands have been accepted. The senior Muslim religious leaders also gave their verdict today and said that Islam does not endorse this brutality. The meeting was headed by CM Punjab as well.

Thirty scholars from the Sunni Ittehad Council have decreed a joint fatwa against attack on minorities, declaring that onslaught on life and property of Christians is against Islam.

By Ali Xaidi

ASWJ and PMLN - Friends or Foes?

During the last few days, a malicious campaign was seen throughout the country against Pakistan Muslim League (N) that it nourishes the banned outfits in Punjab. This campaign was joined by almost all the parties in power along with one of their B-teams outside the parliament without even bothering about the sectarian rifts this could have created in the country. This was for their petty politics only and it reaffirmed the fact that these parties would not hesitate for even a single second in putting a dent to the security of Pakistan if it helps their politics. Scores of attempts have been made during the past two years to undermine PML-N and it has survived all of them but this time the attempt was purely apolitical and threatened the country’s very existence.

An attack was carried out on the Shia Hazara community in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan which is ruled by Pakistan People’s Party and allies. A truck loaded with ammunition struck a busy market in Quetta and in a blink of an eye Pakistan lost 86 of its sons with scores of others who got permanently injured. It was a terrifying act of violence that shook every single person in the country. It was the second attack within a span of only five weeks in Quetta on the Shia Hazara community. Last time the poor community had to suffer a loss of 106 persons when an attack was carried out on Alamdar Road Quetta. This attack was condemned by all the sectors of society and there was not one serious person in the country who endorsed this terrorism.

But unfortunately, there are always people in this world who try to use everything for their gains, no matter how serious a matter is and they never compromise on their politics no matter how fatal it can be for the harmony of the country. Senator Rehman Malik who happens to be the Federal Minister for Interior Affairs of Pakistan came on media and told the world that a banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) had carried out the attack and had also accepted the responsibility of carrying it out. He quite strangely blamed the Government of Punjab for patronizing the LeJ and said that LeJ had safe havens in Punjab where they do the hiring of terrorists, train them, strategize and plan the attacks on Shia community and then go to other provinces and execute these plans.

Now we need to stop for a while and see what actually LeJ is/was and what are the prospects of Rehman Malik’s statement being true? LeJ was a Sunni organization from Deobandi school of thought which was highly charged against the Shias in the country. The founders of the organization believed that Shias are funded and patronized by Iran. This organization was an off-shoot of another anti-Shia organization named Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP). SSP was founded in Jhang and the vision of the organization was to curb the growing influence of Shias in the country but they claimed to be limited to literature only and denounced militancy. However, LeJ always had close relations with the SSP and it is a common belief in the country that LeJ was a militant wing of SSP. For this very reason SSP and LeJ both were banned by General (R) Pervez Musharraf. After the imposition of ban on the organization, Maulana Ahmad Ludhianvi, the founder of SSP, founded Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat (ASWJ) and the organization has been working with this name ever since.

No evidence has ever been found against any member of ASWJ that confirms their involvement in violence or militancy but they have always been looked at with suspicion by most Pakistanis. Undoubtedly they have been against the Shia community but denounce violence, at least publically. Now we don’t know whether they are involved in violence or not but at least we do not have solid proofs against them or even if someone has it, he hasn’t so far put it forward in a court of law.

Coming to the question of PMLN supporting them or patronizing them; we have some proofs that must be shared here in order to put the record straight. First of all, it is needed to be cleared that PMLN has always tried to promote harmony among different sectors and one proof is that it is in alliance right now with JUI (F), a religious party from Deobandi school of thought and also Sunni Tehreek which is from Barlvi school of thought. At the same time it has developed an alliance with Jamat-e-Islami which denounces sects and is a purely Islamic organization that has done extensive work in the field of Islamic literature.

But there are still people who need solid evidences and for those people I have tried to collect some proofs that clearly prove that PMLN has always tried its best to curb such elements and denounced sectarianism.

It was PMLN’s tenure during 1997-99 when Taliban government ruled in Afghanistan. This is what was reported by Dawn at that time:

ISLAMABAD, Oct 7: The government has laid its hands on concrete evidence that people are being trained in Afghanistan to undertake sectarian killings and terrorism in Pakistan.

"We have with us a solid proof that there exist training camps in Afghanistan, which are training terrorists and sending them into Pakistan to kill our people," Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said.

"But we have told the Taliban government and its head Mullah Omar that they should immediately remove these camps so that sectarian killings and other incidents of terrorism in Pakistan could be stopped."

Addressing a news conference here on Thursday, he said his government would not allow anyone to create law and problem. "This is just unacceptable to us and we hope that the Taliban government would respond to our complaint by immediately removing those camps," he asserted.

It was Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif who first alleged in Lahore last week that terrorists were being trained in Afghanistan to carry out sectarian killings in Pakistan.

http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1999/09oct99.html#shah

It can be clearly seen that Nawaz Sharif who was Prime Minister of Pakistan at that time, clearly said that the Taliban government in Afghanistan was promoting sectarianism in Pakistan and that the government had laid its hands on some serious evidence that supported the claim.

It is also a fact that it was Shahbaz Sharif’s government in Punjab that had arrested Riaz Basra and Malik Ishaq on the same account and Riaz Basra had issued threatening statements against the government. In fact Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif narrowly escaped an attack by the same LeJ when the latter ripped apart a bridge barely 2 miles away from his home in Raiwind while he was to leave for Lahore and the bomb missed him only because he had to delay his departure by 10 minutes. This is what BBC had to report on the incident:

Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif narrowly escaped an assassination attempt when a powerful bomb exploded on a bridge he was due to use.

“Information Minister Mushahid Hussain said the prime minister had a lucky escape, after work commitments delayed his departure from Lahore by 10 minutes.”

(Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/247330.stm)

Now when it is quite clear that the PMLN has been victim of these hate mongers instead of being their patrons, I would like to come back to the present and try to share my opinion about the propaganda that is being spread violently on Social Media and mainstream media without any solid backing. There is a photo that is making rounds on the internet in which Rana Sanaullah, a PMLN stalwart from Faisalabad is seen along with Maulana Ahmad Ludhianvi in a car and both are waving their hands before the public. This photo is being shared as a proof by the anti-PMLN people on the web as a proof that PMLN patronizes these sectarian elements. First of all it needs to be told to the people that this photo was taken in 2009, some four years back during a bi-election campaign. It is strange to note that during the same bi-election campaign former Governor Punjab, late Salman Taseer also shared the stage with an official of the same LeJ but at that time also, only Rana Sanaullah was criticized.

Secondly, it is also important to note that after four long years the same photo was again put on display by the same people and it proves that they did not have any photo from these four years to share as an evidence of PMLN having close relations with that party. And most importantly, it must not be forgotten that ASWJ is not a banned outfit. At least Senator Rehman Malik should ban the outfit, using his power as the Interior Minister of Pakistan, before alleging others to be patronizing it.

Instead it was PPP governments of Sindh and Balochistan that granted Weapons licenses to Malik Ishaq. In a statement issued on 27 February, 2013, Rehman Malik admitted that Sindh Government issued three licenses to Malik Ishaq and Balochistan Government issued him 2 licenses. While he also admitted that Malik Ishaq was “mistakenly” given passports by the federal government as well. “Granting passport to Malik Ishaq is mistake” he said.

It is strange that Punjab Government who arrested Malik Ishaq twice is alleged to be patronizing him while those leveling these baseless allegations are issuing him weapon licenses and making such stupid mistakes that may have allowed Malik Ishaq to flee from Pakistan, had Punjab Government not arrested him.

(The link of Rehman Malik’s admittance: http://www.arynews.tv/english/newsdetail.asp?nid=70591 )

Another allegation is that of PMLN looking for an alliance with ASWJ that is based on a story in Express Tribune in which the reporter had claimed to have learned from some sources that PMLN had decided to form an alliance with the ASWJ. Fact is that Express had removed the story from their website after some time and the reporter A Abdul Mannan had made a lot of hue and cry on the same as well. In fact PMLN had issued a denial of the story which can be accessed here: http://etribune.express.com.pk/DisplayDetails.aspx?ENI_ID=11201210010641&EN_ID=11201210010466&EMID=11201210010049

 

It must also be noted that Tribune.com.pk had titled the story as a clarification.

Now in the end I would like to share some proofs that people from PPP and PTI also have had alliances with ASWJ. This account https://twitter.com/ASWJPak revealed on Twitter that there were several PPP leaders who had an alliance with ASWJ in the 2008 elections and some of them have also joined PTI now.

PTI leader Azam Sawati had a meeting with ASWJ leader Molana Rab Nawaz Tahir after the attack in Quetta. Now who should be called as patrons of ASWJ? Those who met them 4 years ago or those who are still having meetings with them and offering them alliances?

Updating this after two years: We must also look at what PTI is doing in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP) after getting into power.

Mr. Edu Ministr #KPK @AtifKhanpti how militant outfit #SSP #ASWJ get permission fr conference in Govt School #DIKhan? pic.twitter.com/qku6FUU3ah
— Syed Anser Abbas (@AnserAbbas) January 3, 2015

Now the motive behind sharing these images is not to prove that PPP or PTI or any other party supports sectarianism in the country. It is just to prove that all these parties are doing what they allege PMLN of. It has been maintained throughout the article that there are no evidences found that prove ASWJ to be a terrorist organization. It is just to show these parties a reflection of their own deeds. It is a fact that while doing the same what PMLN does i. e. meeting ASWJ leaders and seeking their political help in some of the constituencies, it is strange that they blame PMLN for promoting sectarianism in the country.

NOTE: I have tried to cover all the allegations leveled against PMLN by people who are themselves involved in issuing licenses and passports to the very same people and also having alliances with them. It was never to hurt the feelings of any Shia friend as I believe them to be a Pakistani like me before anything. At the same time, I also do not believe Deobandis to be anti-Pakistan. I myself do not belong to any of these sects so just tried to give my point of view instead of leveling allegations against any of the two.