- Maulana Abdul Aziz must be dealt with a firm hand, once and for all
It has become somewhat of an annual event that Maulana Abdul Aziz, the other omnipresent national nuisance, makes headlines for all the wrong reasons. Since the Lal Masjid operation under Musharraf back in 2007, from which Aziz had to famously escape from in a burqa, he has been attempting to reestablish the stronghold status of the mosque with him at the helm. It must not be forgotten that Aziz refused to condemn the APS attack for which he was removed from the Lal Masjid in 2014, only to be allowed to reenter three years later in 2018 and expelled yet again as khateeb (prayer leader) in June of 2019, his entry banned for three months by authorities. Due to the ineptness and failure of the government to make basic appointments in a timely manner, in the absence of a new khateeb, Aziz reentered the mosque with female students last week and is now testing the authorities, making ridiculous demands. His sermon on Friday stopped short of declaring state authorities as infidels working against the interests of the country. Apart from the implementation of Sharia Law he has demanded Rs250 million, land and will negotiate his terms with no one less senior than a cabinet minister.
Such a hostage-like scenario is not new to the country. Maulana Khadim Rizvi’s TLP has successfully disabled the capital for weeks, twice, once during PML(N)’s tenure and thrn during the PTI’s, both times exposing the helplessness of the state, forcing a complete capitulation. Maulana Abdul Aziz’s latest putsch has all the makings of turning violent, unless it is handled with delicacy but also a firm hand. Although the government has taken protective measures outside the mosque to diffuse the situation, it will take a lot more to get Aziz to surrender this time, now that he is controlling affairs from inside. Such zealots are more often than not created by agencies under the pretense of some ill-conceived notion of their value as on-ground assets that can be used periodically to exert pressure on those in need of it. It has become all the more essential to get rid of these enemies of the state because they adversely affect our foreign policy implementation vis-à-vis the FATF, US and Indian allegations of state-sponsored terrorism. If dealt with effectively, Maulana Aziz could be made a good example of a shift in strategy, if indeed there has been one.
