Musharraf and Lal Masjid

Former president General (retd) Pervez Musharraf has been booked in another case of murder, this one concerning the killing in a July 2007 operation of the former deputy head of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad, Abdur Rashid Ghazi. Ghazi died along with his mother, and an unspecified number of other persons, and Aabpara Police in Islamabad filed the case on the orders of the Islamabad High Court, which also questioned its failure to do so earlier. General (retd) Musharraf, currently under house arrest in his Chak Shahzad farmhouse was also indicted recently in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in 2007 and is accused of involvement in the 2006 death of Nawab Akbar Bugti.



General (retd) Musharraf becomes the first former army chief to be formally charged with murder. This can be taken as a good sign; our country certainly needs to move towards across the board justice for all. The developments we have seen over the past few weeks take us closer to this. But at the same time, key questions arise. We may differ with the former president’s policies and many of his doings but if ordering action against militants leads to murder charges, it may result in a still greater reluctance on the part of leaders to take action in this regard and that would be extremely unfortunate. Let us not forget that the Lal Masjid students were far from benign; raiding shops selling DVDs, kidnapping and trying alleged prostitutes, and setting fire to the Ministry of Environment building among other things. The occupants of Lal Masjid also eventually killed more than 10 SSG commandos in the actual operation.

The wider impact of the court’s actions then need to be considered, even as we watch what happens to General (retd) Musharraf over the months ahead. The possibility of treason charges being brought against him, based around his 1999 takeover and 2007 declaration of emergency, seems to loom closer as a result of the cases already filed against him. He may face a harder time in proving he is innocent of these than he will in the various murder accusations he confronts, given that the evidence in these, at least based on what we know for now, lacks substance which could directly be used against him.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 4^th, 2013.

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