EDITORIAL: The federal interior minister, advised his cabinet colleagues and the country that all demands of the proscribed religio-political group Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) have been accepted except their demand to shut down the French diplomatic mission and expel the ambassador. The proscribed entity has gotten used to employing violent tactics to dictate policy to the state and have its way, too. So it has been this time around. As its activists resorted to fierce protests, blocking the GT Road and threatening to march on to Islamabad, a government team led by Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid held negotiations with TLP representatives on Sunday and agreed on what amounts to a complete surrender before a violent outfit. The minister later told journalists at a presser that its 350 workers had been released and the government had decided to withdraw cases against all of them by Tuesday, or Wednesday. He also indicated that the TLP chief, Saad Rizvi, would also be released soon. Furthermore, he said, the government would “look into the Fourth Schedule as well.” Notably, the Fourth Schedule lists names of terrorism and sectarian violence suspects under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. Accordingly, the Punjab government had placed 214 TLP activists on this list. If they were correctly identified for involvement in acts of terrorism, removing them from the list is an open invitation to more trouble.
It may be recalled when last April these people staged violent protests demanding expulsion of the French Ambassador over a blasphemy issue in his country Rizvi along with many others was arrested. Also, the government had declared the TLP a proscribed organisation under the Anti-Terrorism Act, stating, among other things, that it had engaged in terrorism, caused grievous bodily harm, hurt and death to personnel of the law enforcement agencies. In the present instance, the TLP workers are accused of killing two policemen doing their duty and hurting many others. Sadly, that did not matter to the minister. In fact, he came out as more of an apologist for the TLP than someone responsible for ensuring peace and security in the country. By his own account he was hesitant to become a member of the negotiating team but participated on the insistence of TLP leaders. No wonder then that he kept defending the outfit. Contrary to the notification – issued by his predecessor at the behest of the present government — of his own ministry he claimed that the government had slapped no such ban, adding that they are contesting elections on their symbols. Which merits the question in case the government had “reasonable grounds” to proscribe TLP how could it be permitted to participate in elections?
If foregoing pronouncements of the Interior Minister are not troublesome enough, referring to the TLP’s demand for kicking out the French envoy he had said on the record “their [TLP’s] objection that we had done nothing positive in the last six months was correct”, and that the government would now request the National Assembly speaker to convene a committee to debate the matter as per last November’s (imprudent and short-sighted) agreement with the TLP. However, it is gratifying to learn that the federal cabinet does not agree with the views of the interior minister and has firmly rejected this demand. It has decided that the TLP shall be treated as a militant group or outfit. It is abundantly clear that the TLP leadership has no clue of how the world works, and is interested only in exploiting sensitive religious issues to raise its profile among its followers and sympathisers. Anyway, it is not the business of a group of people to dictate foreign policy to the government. The state certainly is more powerful than the TLP or any such organisation. Its reluctance to act is baffling.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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