HERALD Nov-Dec 1998

Fight to the Finish?
By Zaigham Khan

In a dramatic shift in policy, Punjab's law enforcers appear to have received orders from their political masters to crack down hard on sectarian militants once and for all…

After more than a decade of peace committees, highprofile meetings and legal manoeuvring aimed at tackling the menace of sectarian terrorism, and achieving little or nothing at the end of the day, the state has finally decided to strike. In a dramatic shift in policy, Punjab’s law enforcers appear to have received orders from their political masters to crack down hard on sectarian militants once and for all.

Perhaps taking their cue from the crackdown launched in 1995 by Benazir Bhutto’s interior minister in Karachi, Punjab's law and order machinery seems almost unanimous in the view that a General Babar style "operation" is the only way to put an end to sectarian terrorism. As a result, the police seem to have begun applying to sectarian crime the same methods employed while dealing with other dangerous offences. Large-scale raids are being conducted across the province, detainees are allegedly tortured and those suspected of involvement in terrorist activities are being eliminated in what appear to be extra-judicial killings. In the last few weeks alone, no less than seven militants belonging to sectarian organisations have been gunned down in highly suspect, encounters, with the police.

The recent measures introduced by the government come after decades of official pampering. From the days of General Zia Ul Haq's martial law, members of hard-line religious groups have enjoyed the support of the ruling establishment. In recent years, militants belonging to such groups have operated more or less unhindered across the country. Moreover, on the rare occasions that sectarian militants were actually arrested, even the police-otherwise notorious for its brutality- appeared to be meting out preferential treatment. In fact, some say that a tacit agreement existed between the police and the sectarian mafias. The latter would not target law enforcement personnel as long as the former refrained from conducting any serious investigation into the affairs of such organisations.

Today, however, sectarian militants are being gunned down in the streets of the Punjab by law enforcement officials. What prompted this dramatic policy reversal?

Insiders say that as long ago as May last year, Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif had issued a warning to sectarian leaders, telling them to mend their ways or else face a severe crackdown. Subsequently, the government decided to tinker with the law in order to tackle the problem instead of opting for administrative measures. The Anti-Terrorism Act was hurriedly bulldozed through parliament on August 14, 1947 and special courts were set up across the country. Hundreds of cases were transferred to these special tribunals to be dealt with rapidly.

Meanwhile, the police arrested a large number of suspected sectarian terrorists. But lawyers, judges and law enforcement personnel themselves seemed reluctant to expedite these cases. In fact, the special courts failed to serve any other purpose other than sparking off a serious row between the government and the judiciary.

However, tough administrative measures introduced during the same year led to a lull in sectarian violence, which the Muslim League promptly touted as its ultimate victory. But then, the killings started again.

On September 13 this year, Allama Shoaib Nadim, deputy secretary of the Sunni hard-line Sipahe Sahaba Pakistan, and three of his companions were gunned down in Islamabad. These murders immediately ignited protests across the province and set into motion a gruesome series of reprisal killings of Shia notables. In the next few weeks, Riaz Hussain Moch, a well-known Zakir from Jhang, was murdered and Fida Hussain Shah, a civil judge-cum-magistrate, was gunned down along with his daughter and a guard in Gujranwala. Anti-Shia terrorists also attacked a majlis in Kot Addu on September 20, leaving five dead.

On October 17, anti-Sunni terrorists retaliated by killing Maulana Mohammad Abdullah, a well-known religious scholar, chairman of the central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee and khatib of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad. Since then, at least four more people have fallen prey to sectarian hit-men.

Tit-for-tat killings have long been a feature of sectarian terrorism. But even before the recent crackdown, the violence was beginning to take a chilling new turn. Law enforcement experts were becoming increasingly alarmed by the fact that sectarian terrorists were beginning to target police officials.

One of the most serious incidents of this nature was the murder in July 1998 of a SP from Faisalabad, Sardar Ali Mohammad Baloch. For the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, this killing marked a radical departure from the party’s earlier policy. When the Iranian Cultural Centre in Multan was attacked in February 1997, for example, the assailants killed everyone in the building except for the two police guards. If some tacit agreement indeed existed between the police and sectarian militants, it was broken last year with the murder of SP Ashraf Marth, a close relative of interior minister Chaudhry Shujaat. Some say the government could no longer condone the activities of sectarian mafias once law enforcement officers began to be targeted. However, according to another theory doing the rounds in Lahore, the government finally decided to act because the house of the ruling family had also been seriously threatened by sectarian terrorists. This information apparently came to light following the arrest in Faisalabad last year of certain militants who revealed the existence of a plan to murder the Punjab chief minister.

Whatever the motives for the sudden shift in official attitude towards sectarian criminals, analysts say, extra-judicial murders are hardly the ultimate solution to the complex problem of sectarian terrorism. What is even more disconcerting is the fact that the government seems to be tackling the problem from the wrong direction-while, on the one hand, a severe crackdown on sectarian militants is underway, the Muslim League government is simultaneously employing the same Ziaist Policies which created the Frankenstein of sectarianism in the first place.

For instance, the government continues to patronise the so-called jihadi organisations which recruit young men and send them to wage war in Afghanistan and Kashmir. These groups are known to be fertile breeding grounds for sectarian criminals.

Recent investigations have once again laid bare the nexus between jihadi organisations and sectarian crime (see box). For instance, the brother of Hafiz Mohammad Ayub, a terrorist recently killed at the hands of the police, told journalists that Ayub, who joined the Sipahe Sahaba Pakistan about three years ago, frequently visited Afghanistan and Kashmir. A wagon driver by profession, Ayub sold his vehicle in February this year and left for Afghanistan. Thereafter, he severed all contact with his wife and four children.

In some cases, sectarian militants are known to have been summoned from Afghanistan to carry out operation in this country. Qari Allah Wasaya, for instance, was recalled from Afghanistan to assist in the December 26, 1997 Dera Ghazi Khan jailbreak during which a number of hardened sectarian militants managed to escape. Some of these men are said to have carried out the brutal massacre at a Shia graveyard in Mominpura, Lahore, in January 1998, gunning down no less than 25 people.

No government agency appears to be in a position to control the jihadi organisations, some to which have recently gained massive strength due to their connections with the Taliban in Afghanistan. In addition, certain jihadi groups are also known to be linked to Sunni extremist groups such as the Sipahe Sahaba Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

In the final analysis, even as the government talks of cracking down on terrorism, it is at the same time itself adding fuel to the sectarian fire. By resurrecting the Shariah discourse, the government is, wittingly or otherwise encouraging all manner of religiously-motivated extremism. As a result, sectarian issues are bound to enter the mainstream of political discourse, while hard-liners are likely to renew their demand that Pakistan be declared a Sunni state—an aim which both the SSP and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi profess to be fighting for.

By playing the Sharah card and continuing to encourage jihadi organisations, and simultaneously cracking down hard on sectarian militants, the government is at best sending out conflicting signals. As such, its new-found resolve to fight sectarian crime is perhaps nothing more than an admission of its failure to come up with a more civilised and lasting solution.