Lal Masjid operation: SC constitutes judicial commission

Senior judge of federal Shariat Court to head the commission.


Web Desk December 04, 2012

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.

COMMENTS (24)

Lala Gee | 11 years ago | Reply

@Uza Syed:

"The whole sordid affair concerning that ‘den of terror’ called “Lal Masjid” should have been demolished right then when it was first established what kind of place that was. Such places hiding terrorist and storing weapons to be used against the state should have been raised to ground with mightiest power and resolve of the authorities, too much time was given and the mullah media was allowed to provide them propaganda and paint a place of terror as mosque and the terrrorists were called students. There were none who could be called students no matter how much one stretches his imagination, they were terrrorists and trainee terrrorists who challenged us, and our government did what it should have done and must do it again if circumstances so demand. Courts should do better things than glorifying terrorism and making the mutineers and anti people forces some kind of martyrs and heroes."

Fully agree.

Pakistani | 11 years ago | Reply

@nahmed: Get your facts right, more than 300 hundred young children including girls died in that operation. Go to site of Lal Masjid, you will find parents still searching for their beloved children, if cant go there, check out dump site near Jinnah Stadium, I am sure you will find remains (bones) of a few dead bodies of children.

Lal Masjid Operation was a worst example of a Tyrant using unncessary force to kill 15/20 armed men and 500 children.

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