ISLAMABAD: Deposed Lal Masjid cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz’ demand that the 20 kanals of land offered to him by the capital administration in negotiations on Sunday be located in one of three areas in the capital has been conveyed to the government for approval.

Senior capital administration officials told Dawn that during last week’s negotiations between the administration and Mr Aziz – mediated by a committee of eight Deoband scholars – he identified land in three parts of the city for the Jamia Hafsa seminary.

They said the Cabinet Division is the appropriate authority to approve the land for seminary, which is why Mr Aziz’ demand has been conveyed to the government.

They explained that after the allotment of land for the seminary in H-11 was cancelled, land on the G.T. Road in Tarnol was approved in its place. However, Mr Aziz rejected this and demanded land elsewhere in the city.

Maulana Abdul Aziz’ nephew denies he will leave mosque, saying he will remain in the houses adjacent with his family

This demand, along with a few others, led him, his family and seminary students to occupy Lal Masjid to build pressure on the government. The standoff between the cleric and the capital administration ended after negotiations, with students starting to leave by Sunday.

All the roads adjacent to the mosque have been opened to the public, and a police contingent stationed there has been called back, officials said. A few police teams are still deployed to deal with any situation, and patrolling around the mosque has been increased until it is vacated completely.

They said Mr Aziz has assured the administration that the mosque will be vacated soon. They said he asked the administration for some time, just as the administration has asked him for some time to have his demand approved by the government.

The officials did not disclose the locations of the land identified by Mr Aziz, saying only that they have sought a few days to get a response from the government.

But Haroon Rasheed, Mr Aziz’ nephew and the son of the mosque’s former naib khateeb Maulana Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, denied that they had demanded any land for the seminary.

“We reached a verbal agreement with the administration to declare the land in H-11 disputed until a final decision,” he said, adding that the land was allotted for the seminary and the allocation was revoked even though construction of the seminary had already begun.

“We asked the administration not to give us that land or any other until a final decision [is made] by declaring the land ‘disputed’,” he said, adding that the administration had agreed.

Mr Rasheed said that their other demand was for Mr Aziz to remain at the mosque and become the prayer leader.

He said: “We are not vacating the mosque. Maulana Aziz’ family and I will stay in the houses there.”

“We built these houses adjacent to the mosque but not on its land,” he went on. He said that they were not built on the mosque’s land but adjacent to it.

He said the students would also remain in the seminary built next to the mosque.

Mr Rasheed said that the administration has registered four separate cases against them with the Aabpara police, including on charges of interfering in official works.

“All the FIRs were sealed until further orders,” he said.

Another FIR was registered against Umme Hassan, Mr Aziz’ wife, and Mr Rasheed on charges of criminal intimidation under section 506(ii) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

That case was registered on a complaint lodged by Shuhada Foundation spokesperson Hafiz Ihtashamul Haq, police said, adding that another case on the same charge was registered against Mr Rasheed in response to a complaint by the same complainant.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2020