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Meet "good Taliban" the Pakistani state nurtured in the last three decades

18 September 2012

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The News on Sunday

A dangerously free man

The recent and drastic phase of anti-Shia violence coincides with the release of Malik Mohammad Ishaq. A peek into the life of this “good Taliban†the Pakistani state nurtured in the last three decades

by Arif Jamal

In recent months, killings of Shia Muslims in Pakistan have touched new heights. The killers, ostensibly from the jihadist Deobandi groups, have invented new methods. Buses are stopped on the highways and sects of passengers are identified with the help of their names on the national identity cards. Those who are identified as Shia Muslims are killed.

In other cases, people are made to take their shirts off to see if their backs carry any signs of flagellation. Those with marks of flagellation on their backs are brutally killed.

The state is unable to bring the killers to justice. The rise in the killings of Shia Muslims coincides with the release of hundreds of terrorists including Malik Mohammad Ishaq, Pakistan’s top terrorist and one of the founders of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), the armed wing of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, by the High Courts and the Supreme Court.

The anti-Shia sectarian violence drastically increased after Malik Mohammad Ishaq was released on bail in July 2011 by the Lahore High Court. The Punjab government had to put him under house arrest more than once to silence the public protest against his release. He was released for the last time earlier this year after the public protests died down.

After his final release, Malik Ishaq also became active in the Defense of Pakistan Council (DPC) activities. The DPC is an umbrella alliance of more than 40, big and small, terrorist groups and some political parties. Its members include Jamatud Dawah/Lashkar-e-Taiba (JuD/LeT) and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (SSP/LeJ). The latter is known to be a Pakistani affiliate of the al-Qaeda.

Hundreds of Kalashnikov-toting workers of the LeJ and its parent party, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), welcomed Malik Ishaq outside the jail. As he came out of the jail gate, Ishaq said that he and his followers were ready to lay down their lives for the honour of the companions of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). Interestingly, the welcome group outside the jail was led by Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi, the head of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, which has been claiming to have no links with the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which removed whatever doubts there could have been about their links.

Pakistan’s political system is still able to absorb terrorists while the judicial system is unable to punish them. Malik Ishaq confessed in an interview with an Urdu daily in October 1997 that he had been “instrumental in the killing of 102 people†. Still he can be a free man.

Soon after his release on bail, Malik Ishaq started his campaign against the Shias which resulted in more violence against them. Consequently, the local administration put him under house arrest. In spite of all such half-hearted efforts, the anti-Shia violence went considerably high. Later, the government extended the detention period for another 30 days. As the 30-day detention period was about to expire, the government extended the detention for another 60 days. In December 2011, the Provincial Review Board agreed to extend the detention period for another 30 days. However, the Lahore High Court finally released him on January 20, 2012.

The SSP/LeJ is one of the few terrorist groups which has been taking part in the elections and also winning in some constituencies. However, more importantly, the election results have shown a solid following of the group in several other constituencies where the SSP candidates cannot win.

According to a jihadi publication, Ummat, his release had been made possible through an agreement between the SSP/LeJ and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), the governing party in Punjab. The SSP/LeJ helped the incumbent Chief Minister, Mian Shahbaz Sharif, get elected unopposed from District Bhakkar with the help of Malik Ishaq’s brother. The claim does not seem far fetched, given the political links between the two parties.

Soon after the Pakistan Muslim League came into power in 2008, it started providing financial support to Malik Ishaq and his family. According to a senior security official, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) and the SSP/LeJ have agreed to silently cooperate with each other in the next general elections.

The LeJ was first banned in Pakistan by General Pervez Musharraf in August 2001, however, no practical measures were taken to demolish its organisational infrastructure. The United States designated the LeJ as a terrorist group in 2003. One of the reasons was its involvement in the kidnapping and later murder of the Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.

Malik Ishaq was born and raised in village Tarinda Swai Khan in District Rahim Yar Khan. He went to a local school and then to a local madrassa. Later, he set up his own shop in Rahim Yar Khan in the early 1980s. At the same time, he started taking interest in local politics. He also organised a union of local shop-keepers.

As the forests around Rahim Yar Khan attracted a lot of Middle Eastern royals for illegal hunting, he came into contact with some of them. Malik Ishaq’s Arab contacts helped his mentor and the founder of the SSP, Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, to organise his group in 1986. For the next decade, the SSP was involved in scores of terrorist attacks on the Shia Muslims in Pakistan which resulted in hundreds of deaths.

As the pressure on the SSP grew, it decided to separate its armed wing under the name of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in 1996. From then onwards, the SSP did politics and the LeJ the killings. The two pretended to have no links. According to a senior security officer, the separation of LeJ from the SSP was brought about to have close cooperation with the al-Qaeda.

Henceforth, most of the LeJ cadres were trained in the al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.

On July 11, 2011, the Lahore High Court granted bail to Malik Ishaq for lack of evidence in the much publicised case of attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team which he was alleged to have planned from behind the bars. Like other cases of terrorism, the prosecution had hardly worked on this case. The prosecution produced two witnesses who stated that they had heard some people saying a group had planned to carry out an attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore to get Malik Ishaq released.

The case of Malik Ishaq was not a lone case.

Soon after releasing him, the Lahore High court ordered the provincial home ministry to stop the provincial police from keeping another 25 SSP terrorists under their watch.

Malik Ishaq is an accused in 44 cases of terrorism and murders. He has already been acquitted in 34 of 44 cases. He had confessed and was convicted in two cases and served the sentences. He remained behind bars for 14 years. Five witnesses and three of their relatives were killed during the trial. Ishaq was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Many of the witnesses and their relatives in cases against him, like in cases of other LeJ terrorists, were killed. When four witnesses identified Ishaq during a trial of a case in which 12 Shia Muslims were killed, Ishaq told the judge during his trial that “dead men cannot talk†. Five witnesses and three of their relatives were killed in terrorist attacks during the trial. In March 2007, the LeJ carried out a bicycle bomb to kill a judge who was on his way to hear his case. The driver of the judge and two policemen also died in the attack. Ishaq was charged with planning that attack but he was acquitted for lack of evidence.

For Pakistan, Malik Ishaq is a good Taliban as his group does not carry out attacks on the Pakistani military and is ready to carry forward the military’s national and regional agenda. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attacked the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009 and Malik Ishaq was one of the terrorist leaders who was reportedly flown in special military airplane to negotiate with the hostage takers.

Being in a jail, Malik Ishaq was, according to sources, flown in the personal aircraft of the army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani. Another plane, belonging to the ISI chief Shuja Pasha, reportedly flew Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi to Rawalpindi. Other good Taliban who were flown by the Pakistani military to Rawalpindi included Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil, the ameer of Harkatul Mujahideen, and Mufti Abdul Rauf, the younger brother of ameer of Jaish-e-Mohammad Maulana Masood Azhar.

According to another security officer, the Pakistani military had also agreed to help release Malik Ishaq and some other SSP/LeJ terrorists for the role the SSP/LeJ played during the siege of the Army General Headquarters in 2009. The military’s support made the task of the PML-N easy.

(Presently, Malik Ishaq is in Kot Lakhpat prison, Lahore, on judicial remand.)

The writer is a US-based journalist and author of ‘Shadow War — The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir’