IT has not happened for the first time that the state has surrendered to a group it had declared terrorist. But the way the government capitulated yet again to the banned Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan is despicable. A day after the TLP threatened to storm the capital and two policemen were killed in Lahore, the interior minister announced that the government had accepted all their demands.
He was all praise for the leaders of the outlawed outfit that has held the country hostage to its retrogressive, violent ideology. All those involved in the rioting and killing of the law enforcers have been released and it has also been decided to unfreeze the group’s bank accounts.
It’s not clear what other demands the government has conceded to. The interior minister also appeared confused over the fact that his government had banned the TLP earlier this year and had declared it a terrorist group. He now wants the cabinet to review the decision. The minister tries to rationalise the surrender in the face of violence saying that “…it is not the job of the state to use the stick”.
It couldn’t get more shameful than this, with the government surrendering its right to use force to maintain law and order and protect the lives of citizens. These pronouncements by the interior minister raise questions about the state’s resolve to fight all manner of violent extremism and terrorism. In fact, the government has shamelessly accepted the use of violence by a proscribed organisation in pursuance of the latter’s illegal demands.
posted by f.sheikh
There is no doubt that TLP is created by the establishment–openly known when during Imran Khan’s ‘dharana’ an officer in his ‘khaki’ was seen distributing envelopes to the TLP workers. Today it has appeared again not to support the protestor Imran Khan, but an after-shock to a PM Imran Khan engaged in contention with the establishment in the appointment of a DIG of the ISI. Though the arrogant Khan has shown some lame-compromise in his stance, he has created a streak of mistrust between his proclaimation of ‘being on one page’ with the establishment. Wait and see, whether the wind subsides or starts blowing as a storm. MIRZA ASHRAF