Lal Masjid Commission: Shaukat Aziz passes buck to military

Ex-PM Shaukat Aziz passed the buck for the Lal Masjid operation to the military authorities and the interior ministry.

ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Shaukat Aziz passed the buck for the Lal Masjid operation on to the military authorities and the interior ministry, during a two-hour long testimony before the Lal Masjid commission on Monday. 

Aziz, who recorded his statement from Pakistan’s High Commission in London via a video link, shed off all responsibility for the military operation during his tenure as premier, saying that local administration, security agencies, interior ministry and politicians were the ones primarily involved in negotiations with defiant clerics who had holed themselves up in the mosque.

Denying the impression that the operation was pre-planned, Aziz said, “Yes, there were several contingency plans as is necessary, but we were not prefixed on the use of force,” adding that it was his administration’s desire to make the negotiations successful and that after exhausting all options the decision of an operation was taken as a measure of last resort.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2013.