Lal Masjid operation: SC constitutes judicial commission

Senior judge of federal Shariat Court to head the commission.

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has constituted a judicial commission to further investigate the Lal Majid operation conducted in 2007, Express News reported on Tuesday.

Senior judge of federal Shariat Court Shahzad will be heading the commission.

Earlier in September this year, an anti-terrorism court acquitted the former chief cleric of Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdul Aziz, and 16 other persons in a case on the killing of a Rangers official.

Background

On July 3, 2007, former president Pervez Musharraf had ordered a military operation against the mosque for challenging the writ of the state. The military besieged the mosque for 12 days before assaulting the compound, an attack in which hundreds of students were killed.

The former chief cleric of Lal Masjid was accused of using the mosque loudspeaker to instigate madrassa students to attack the Rangers who were deployed outside the mosque in order to prevent Aziz and his associates at Lal Masjid from continuing their campaign of public intimidation that they had been carrying out since January of that year.

The charges against Aziz also include kidnapping and abduction of Chinese massage therapists as well as hijacking a children’s library in June 2007 as part of his institution’s protest against the demolition of seven mosques in the federal capital.