THE state has initiated another crackdown against the leadership of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) after the group incited violence against Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa. The government’s strong response was necessary in this situation. It remains to be seen how effective it will be and whether the government remains firm in its decision.

The TLP’s threats to the judiciary are not new; neither has it spared the top military brass in the past in its hatemongering. One of its founders, Pir Afzal Qadri, had threatened the judges of the Supreme Court and incited soldiers to stand against generals if Aasia Bibi (accused of blasphemy but later acquitted) was not hanged publicly. He made this statement in the presence of Khadim Rizvi, the co-founder of the group, in 2018. Rizvi had used similarly strong language against the judiciary and military leadership, besides igniting religious bigotry.

The state institutions acted swiftly after the TLP leadership’s statements became louder. The group’s top leadership, including Rizvi and Qadri and thousands of its workers, were arrested. Later, Qadri backtracked from his statements and quit the TLP. Hundreds of TLP workers issued disclaimers and disassociated themselves from the group. It looked like the state had decided to crush the TLP completely.

Just a few months later, Rizvi was granted bail by the Lahore High Court and released from jail. He did not take a break and restarted his hate campaign. He secured over two million votes in the 2018 elections. Many political analysts had linked his release with the election, but the biggest challenge was the TLP’s rise and its hate-filled campaigns.

The group’s threats to the judiciary are not new; neither has it spared the top military brass.

Initially, the PTI government took a soft sta­nce on the TLP, but it was becoming a challenge for the state after the death of Rizvi. His son Saad built up further momentum, and marched on Islamabad in April 2021 to demand the expulsion of the French ambassador from the country. TLP zealots killed several policemen, Saad Rizvi was arrested and the party banned.

The situation took another turn when the TLP launched a nationwide protest for the release of its leader. The protests became violent, forcing the government to release all TLP leaders and workers. Later, in November 2021, even the demand to lift the ban on the party was accepted.

The state has yet to adopt a straightforward approach to dealing with the TLP. Since the TLP’s inception, it has accepted all its demands, including controversial ones, to convince its leadership to end their protest. However, the state used such agreements only to find a temporary solution to end the protests; this, eventually, strengthened the group.

Arrests, crackdowns, and criminal charges are not new in the TLP’s case. The question is: why does the state compromise after taking decisive action against the group? Why is it tolerating a group, which is responsible for vandalism, the killing of innocent citizens and security officials, damaging property, blotting the country’s international image, and being a source of extremism? The state’s attitude is making it strong and one of the indications of this has been its growing vote bank.

Successive governments have not shown the will or capacity to deal with the group. At a recent press conference, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif and Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal condemned the TLP leader’s remarks against the chief justice. They showed the same resolve for the rule of law as the PTI government had. The latter eventually surrendered to the group’s demands.

Ahsan Iqbal has himself been a victim of TLP hatemongering and faced an assassination attempt by one of the group’s supporters in 2018, while Khawaja Asif’s hometown Sialkot has been mentioned by the international press because of the tragic incident of mob lynching of Sri Lankan citizen Priyantha Kumara on false allegations of blasphemy in 2021.

The statement issued by both ministers would test the government’s resolve, especially considering that the law-enforcement agencies are afraid of the TLP’s street power and capacity to incite mass violence. The establishment sees each radical group’s potential through a political lens, which prevents it from taking decisive action against such groups. Such radical groups remain an integral part of the political engineering designs of the establishment. Before the TLP, several banned groups, including the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, Jamaatud Dawa, and many other extremist outfits, were used for political purposes.

Internal and external pressures and the changing security dynamic have forced the establishment to find new religious actors for political manoeuvres. The TLP will have utility for the state until a new actor replaces it. It cannot be predicted what the future tool will look like, but this group itself has caused a lot of damage and is considered a major source of extremism in the country.

It knows the establishment’s weakness and exploits it. During its last sit-in at its favourite spot at the juncture of the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi at Faizabad, ostensibly showing solidarity with Palestine though perhaps also to counter the PTI’s jubilance after the Supreme Court’s decision on the reserved seats, it was expected that the TLP would use the opportunity for other ends.

In 2021, when the government banned the outfit, the interior minister at that time, Sheikh Rashid, and the religious affairs minister, Noorul Haq Qadri, said that the group had engaged in terrorism, actions prejudicial to national peace and security, and efforts to create anarchy by intimidating the public. The TLP was accused of causing harm to law-enforcement personnel and civilians, vandalising public property, obstructing essential health supplies, and promoting hatred. The group was seen as a significant threat to national security.

Consequently, under Section 11B(1) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, the federal government listed the TLP as a proscribed organisation, which means that the group was considered a national security threat by the state.

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2024