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The recently released khateeb of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid Maulana Abdul Aziz has said that the situation that has emerged in the troubled areas of Swat, Buner and Dir is a reaction to the military operation conducted against the mosque in 2007. He claimed that most of the students of Lal Masjid who suffered due to the operation hailed from Malakand division of the Frontier province and were now taking their revenge. ‘I had warned the then government not to go for the military operation on the mosque otherwise the situation would get out of control and I will not be responsible for the reaction,’ said Maulana Aziz in an interview with Dawn.
In light of Maulana Aziz’s comments, do you think military operations in Buner and Dir are inadvisable? Will initiatives by security forces simply create a new army of revenge seekers? How can army operations be conducted so as not to have a negative fallout in the future? Or what other options should the Pakistan government consider in the northern and tribal areas?
I just wonder that government of Pakistan let him and his wife spread their ideology freely. I also am ashamed of people who continue praying behind him! I am also ashamed of the images of his ‘niqab-posh’ students with weapons in their hands! I am also ashamed of Islamabadis who can not tell Maulana sahib that they consider him a TERRORIST!
Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry should be tried for high treason for releasing the lal masjid terrorist immediately after getting into his supreme court seat. Is this the justice and prosperity for Pakistan for which he was taking out long rallies all over Pakistan? He has done every thing to throw Pakistan back another 100 years.
I am not in favour of Martial law but if Talibans can be eliminated by imposing Martial Law then go ahead!!!
Talibans are like termites which slowly weakning roots of our country. We must thoroughly investigate which elements are involved in helping Talibans.
Current government can not control the situation and realized the taliban threat when they were 70 miles away from Islamabad. My last hope is Pakistan Army which I am sure that they can throw out talibans from the country.
In my opinion, all religious parties in pakistan are contributing to terrorism and whoever favours Talibans are terrorists. Eliminate them or put them behind bars. These religious parties never contributed to Pakistan in past and never will do in future so what is the purpose to spare them?
Mosque or Masjid is a place of peace and worship but seems Lal Masjid was the storage of weapons of destruction. Sometimes I laugh that these people say themselves TRUE muslim. Also I surprise how these people managed to buy weapons and who sponsor them? We must catch their roots and by doing this I believe at some extent we can cure that disease.
Mr. Abdul Aziz’s opinion can be partially agreed to by some peoples who think that the actions of the Taliban of Lal Masjid were right. What they were doing in Islamabad. They were armed and were challenging the writ of the government. They were burning videos and cds shops. They kidnapped Chinese. They kidnapped policemen. Whenever they liked they blocked the road. They gave the dead line to the government to impose their sect’s law (theocracy) instead of democracy in the country.
One can differ to the way they were handled but no one can justify there activities. If better techniques were used to un-arm them the loss may be very low and revenge may be less. But we see in Iraq and Afghanistan and in Srilanka that the terrorists are using suicidal bombers to attack on Army and police.
The main point is what Taliban want. After the passage of the Nizam-i-Adl resolution, the government fulfilled the demand of the religious activists in Sawat. After this all of us were expecting a total peace because the demand of fundamentalists have been fulfilled but as the agenda of the Taliban is very long as per their leader Muslim Khan’s statement shows. In a recent statement Taliban leader Muslim Khan has openly given invitation to all the world fighters (Terrorists) including al-Qaida, to come to Swat to fight USA. This statement clearly showing that Taliban want to make Sawat and Fata the new battle field. Taliban have no interest in peace. They only want to fight to first concur Pakistan and then entire world.
Now if the entire world wants to avoid from Taliban’s revenge then they should not touch them and should handover the rule of the entire world so that they can hang the peoples. They can ban education especially girl’s education. They can arrange open flogging and cutting of limbs of the people. So that they can bring back the stone age and women never come out of their houses.
Let us come out of confusions and said yes to all positives and no to all negatives.
So let us say yes to, Peace, Prosperity, Unity, and Faith and Discipline .Say yes to Democracy, Discussions, and Arguments, reasoning, equality and Human Rights and justice.
Say yes to hard work, Quality, Honesty and Truth. Say yes to education, science and technology. Say yes to kindness, love and respect. Say yes to health, exercise and treatment. Say yes to Freedom of thought and speech and faith.
Let us say no to the Taliban!
A kid has a better judgment then our government. It continues to make deals with these fanatics with full knowing of the outcome based on past deals. It is shameful of gov. to take a lazy stand and watch the situation escalate out or proportion and wake up only when their Kashol is full. Despicable!
Taliban are no friends of Islam, I do not understand why we even talk to these people. Plain outright terrorists need to be dealt with Iron hand. Stop harassing women, eliminate taliban make life peaceful for every Pakistani.
Assalam Alaikum,
My respected brothers and sisters. Everything boils down to the same conclusion. Why are we trying to kill each other. The army is going to kill ten and another tell will apprear. Why isn’t anyone questioning their financial and weapon support. Why aren’t we going behind the ones who are the masterminds. People wake up, this is what the foreign agents want. They want us to kill each other. How difficult is that to understand. The army needs to find out the routes, where TTP and BLA are getting weapons. Bring the masterminds to the media or finish them. Is that really difficult, if we really wanted to finish this threat, our Army is very much competent. Please people don’t let them finish us, we are the last hope to Islam. Every other Muslim nation is sold or fractured. Join hands and fight this threat against our motherland. May Allah guide us all to the direction of Qur’an and Sunnah. Ameen Sum Ameen..
Unfortunately, Pakistan’s current problem with terrorists is one of their own doing. By creating, training and arming these barbarians with the aim of “fighting” for Kashmir, Pakistan has now created a Frankenstein monster in its own bosom.
The only way forward for Pakistan is:
– reach a quick and permanent agreement with India over Kashmir. Something along the line of control seems to make most sense. Then divert resources from the non-existent India threat to dealing with these Taliban barbarians. India will never want to take back POK because they do not want to deal with this problem either.
– completely, ruthlessly, and totally eliminate the Taliban in Pakistan. Eliminate all Madrassas
– Form a true partnership with India, US and other countries and get their help in vanquishing the Taliban
– Moving forward, Pakistan should for ever disavow Sharia and other nonsense
The very existence of Pakistan is at stake. Stop fooling yourself about non-existent problems (like Kashmir), and start dealing with the real problem in your country, and start thinking about Pakistan’s real future in a developed modern world. It would be terrible to see Pakistan become another Afghanistan.
It is a victory for evil when good men and women standby and allow it to fester without showing courage of action.
Pakistan , where are your courageous sons and daughters to stand up against this evil of religious persecution?
Khateeb’s son says:
May 4th, 2009 at 2:11 pm Long live the matyrs of Red mosque.
The opinion of media is illadvised and defames our religion, we should get together under the umbrella of Maulana Abdul Aziz for better future of the country and islam.
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Truer words of ignorance have never been so spoken.
Let’s understand the logic here. Revenge exerted towards prior revenge executed over previous revenge of policies that were against human and civil rights.
One big cluster ( you know what) of cycle of revenge. Let’s just hope the majority wins over the minorities revenge.
What we are listening to is the person who escaped clad in a burqa.
Listening to the clerics will lead Pakistanis into only hatred. We need to ask the government why Abdul Aziz is allowed to give such sermons which is further fuelling the condition. Revenge seekers theory is right in the sense people who lost their dear ones in the drone attacks will certainly become revenge seekers but the present phenomenon is an amalgam of Khwaraj phenomenon of early Islam and the merecenaries acting on the outside powers and it is becoming evident from the voices from Government and other quarters.
There is a ray of hope is that the things have escalated and have reached or going to reach at it’s peak and soon will die down as the Khwaraj phenomenon died but the other bit needs to be taken care by Government.
he media should arrange street opinion leaders events in every Tehsil and Town on weekly basis and make a wave against the Taliban, Al-Qaeda whatever it is. These mercenaries have frustrated ANP which is one of the progressive political party.
YES! non-state militancy should be eliminated. But, who would do this good act.
The NATO forces have not been able, as yet, to dis-engage this deadly force in Afghanistan even in such a long time.
The western border should be protected to stop the infilteration of the war mongers.
And, the war lords should be brought to justice.
It is becoming evident that swati Taliban have no plans to accept rule of law. They accept nothing , the constitution , the judiciary , political system , army , the values of Pakistan society. They are foreign elements trying to destabillize Pakistan. If they had interests within Pakistan, they must accept the values of islam and pakistan society, to bond with already trobuled pakistan they have to come up with a better plan than ‘Every thing’s bad.’
Oh my God ! What has become of Pakistan ! From where these Mullahs, Moulvis, and Talebanis have sneaked into the heart of nation? My father was a protege Of Moulana Abul Kalam Azad and Dr. Zakir Hussain. He used to tell us about the correspondence between Dr. Saif Uddin Kachlu and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. It is all now buried in the achieves of history. He never accepted that a Muslim needs to close the doors and windows to remain a Muslim. In 1947 history took a violent convulsion and Pakistan came into existence in the name a true modern Islamic republic. It was a fulfillment of dreams of Allama Iqbal (the thinker who had written Sare Jahan say acha, hindustan humara), it was the realization of the dreams of clean shaved intellectual like Mr. Liaqat Ali Khan and many more forward looking Muslims. The Muslims of the subcontinent were divided intellectually, politically and ideologically on this issue. However, once it came into existence no one wanted to see it disintegrating. Two nation theory met its first Waterloo when Bangbandhu Mujib decided to part with the West Pakistan. Now whatever little strip of land is left in the name of Pakistan is in the process of being swallowed up by these Talebanis.
Today they are harassing helpless Sikhs and other minorities. Do they know how much we the Indian Muslims had to suffer after partition and what price we paid for that. The Pakistanis should be proud of these people who had believed in Jinnah’s democratic Pakistan and decided to stay back. Do they know that the people migrated form India are still known as Muhajirs and their leader has to take refuge in London for his survival while the people migrated from Pakistan to India are living a life of grace and satisfaction. These Talibanis are the rootless phenomenons and it is the duty of Pakistani society to crush this serpent before it swallows the dreams of Iqbal. These fanatics are giving a bad name to Islam, to Pakistan and they are the curse of humanity. Where are the lawyers of Pakistan who stood up for one C.J., where is the Prince of Lahore, where is Asma Jahangeer ? Why can’t the Pakistani Society show courage and stand up now and give protection to these hapless minorities?
Maulana should be careful enough while giving such statements because otherwise the situation can go from bad to worse.
No doubt, the ex-dictator committed a crime against humanity at the time, but that doesn’t mean another revenge should follow by killing innocent people or challenging the writ of the government.
Maulana should have at least declared the revengeful attitude of suicide bombers as haraam.
Let’s bury the past and start afresh.
However, initiatives by security forces are likely to create a new breed of the armed militancy beyond any doubt.
Since the militancy creates security problem and the writ of the State is compromised, therefore, General Kayani should find a middle ground in order to avoid another wave of mis-adventures.
But, the bottom line is “peace”, which should be achieved through whatever cost.
No Peace with the Taliban, just eliminate them. The terrorists dont deserve to sit at the same table as our Govt reps.
I blame the ANP party, the ANP has given away Swat and its citizens to a bunch of barbaric, illiterate and more dangerously foreign band of militants among them Afghans, Chechens, Uzbeks etc.
Why is there any peace talks at all with people who do not keep their word, who only want to spread their poison, and who use terrorism to further their cause, these people should be wiped out completely no matter what it costs our nation, but we need to win this for the future of a progressive Pakistan.
Many nations have fought similar terrorists and not given in so disgracefully as our parliament has, UK vs IRA, Spain vs Basque, Sri Lanka vs Tamil Tigers, Columbia vs FARC, US vs Al Qaeda, Turkey vs PKK, and many others, but it was only the NWFP and Pakistani parliament that capitulated to within days, what a disgrace.
In a life-and-death struggle, you don’t worry about revenge, you worry about being the last one standing.
This is another drama and excuse to protect taliban ,The “think tank ” of taliban defends them from every angle and trying to get sympathy from the people .
Mulla abdul aziz should not have been released
Abdul Aziz and and other fanatics like him can compe up with any reason to justify their beliefs. If our children are not save in their scools , then no talib can be justified.
I think he should be tried for treason and conspiring against the state.
The Lal Masgid was an embracement for not only the Mushraf government but for the state of Pakistan. Those people from Red Mosque were feeding a consistent stream of negative stories to the Western media. Mushraf administration had a lot of public pressure in Islamabad to take an action against the crude unofficial religious police. Mushraf warned the nation about the suicide bombing as a result of Lal Masgid operation.
What Mushraf government lost was the propaganda war against the militant. The same news papers who are now crying for an action against Taliban painted a horrible picture of the Lal Masgid operation.
In the future the government needs to use similar tactics that Israelis and Indians have adopted in Gaza and in Kashmir. This would include eimination of the militant leaders with stealth means. Also, we need to deny enemy propaganda tools, any newspaper or TV outlet that aid Taliban effort to spread propaganda should be censored. I know these are very harsh tactics but when you are dealing with a barbaric enemy who can kill a child as a revenge, there is no other option.
Its time to deal forcefully with the people in Lal Masjid, and its madrassa. Being apologetic over it, will actually fuel the fire. The fanatics are rewriting history as to who actually started all the drama in Islamabad.
Long live the matyrs of Red mosque.
The opinion of media is illadvised and defames our religion, we should get together under the umbrella of Maulana Abdul Aziz for better future of the country and islam.