THE state’s complacency when it comes to battling militancy and extremism on the legal front is well known. When extremists know they’ll be able to work the system in such a way that they can evade justice, they will only be further emboldened. Speaking of extremism, 2007’s Lal Masjid stand-off was a major turning point in this country’s history, when the militant threat confronting Pakistan was fully exposed. However, one of the major architects of the fiasco, Maulvi Abdul Aziz, chief cleric of Lal Masjid, has been cleared in all cases, with the last acquittal coming on Monday. Since 2001 the preacher had faced numerous charges, with cases of murder, kidnapping and abduction filed in 2007. It should be remembered that the Lal Masjid clerics, led by Abdul Aziz, were running a fiefdom within Islamabad, complete with ‘Sharia courts’ and roving bands of stick-wielding madressah student-enforcers. They had raided massage parlours and threatened shopkeepers in the federal capital, while in the build-up to the mosque stand-off law enforcement personnel were also killed and abducted. Yet the acquittals came about because the state failed to ensure protection for the witnesses; 60 turned hostile. When there’s no testimony, how can a case be built, especially when witnesses are intimidated by extremists?

The operation to retake the mosque was indeed botched by the Musharraf regime. But that is a different debate; the Lal Masjid clerics’ activities before and during the stand-off were crimes against the state, hence these crimes and the handling of the crisis should not be bundled together. The state must consider what sort of message such acquittals send. It appears that the government is indicating that it is OK to set up a parallel justice system, indulge in criminality and militancy and get away with it.