Truth will out

JI has shown its true colours several times before, only Pakistanis were slow in recognising these religious fascists.

It is pathetic that the Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami has had the cold-hearted effrontery to suggest that the murdering terrorists of the TTP who have killed thousands of innocent Pakistanis and our brave army soldiers and officers including one Lieutenant General and one Major General; police jawans and officers including several Additional and Deputy Inspectors Generals; Khassadars and Levies, are martyrs (shaheeds) while their victims are not because they are fighting America’s war.

First off, let us rid us of the canard that the War on Terror started when the Americans bombed/invaded Afghanistan. As said by myself in this space as well as elsewhere over the years, but particularly by the sagacious and well-informed Brigadier (retd) Asad Munir, the TTP emerged far before the Americans did in Afghanistan-II. He says (The News, July 6, 2013 “Narratives on the TTP”, italics mine): “In 1994, the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) initiated an armed movement for enforcement of Shariah in the Malakand Division. The group took control of some districts through the use of force. It took the Frontier Corps more than a month to dislodge the TNSM from the areas it had captured. Nizam-e-Adl was introduced and established in Malakand in 1995 — later revised in 1998.

“However … leaders of the TNSM enforced Taliban’s rule in Swat and Bajaur, led by Fazlullah — son-in-law of Sufi Mohammad (and now the ‘Emir’ of the TTP) — and Faqir Mohammad, respectively. In 1996, the Afghan Taliban captured Kabul. Inspired by their achievements, a Taliban force was raised in the Orakzai Agency in 1997. In 1998, a Taliban force emerged in Mirali, North Waziristan.” So there! Can we please stop getting confused any more about who started the killing?

But back to the disgusting statement. Has Munawwar Hassan forgotten the systematic killing spree against the armed forces particularly the army and its senior officers, not sparing their children either? Does he forget the attack on the Parade Lane Mosque by his heroes whose dead he terms ‘shaheed’; the blowing up of buses carrying clerical staff of the ISI; the attack on the GHQ; Mehran Base; POFs, Wah; Kamra, and most recently, the attack on a bus carrying lower staff of the K-P Secretariat to Charsadda?

Has he forgotten the attack on the police training centre in Lahore and the ISI offices in Lahore and Faisalabad and on the FIA headquarters in Lahore? Or the attack in Sukkur, all of the above claiming tens of lives and leaving scores mutilated?

Has he, indeed, forgotten the attack on innocent women and children in Lahore’s Moon Market and on the women’s Meena Bazaar in Peshawar which, too, took so many innocent lives and mutilated many more? And the shooting in the head of a young girl on her way to school in Swat?

Indeed, has Hassan already forgotten the attack on the Peshawar church barely a month ago in which upwards of 100 innocent people were killed and scores were mutilated, or the attacks on several churches across Pakistan before this one, one even on the good people who run the Christian Hospital in Taxila and which ministers mainly to Muslims: 90 to 10! Three poor nurses died that day, Amir Sahib, and when the news went around, the women of Taxila came out, rolling pins and dandas in hand to stand guard, daring your pets to come attack again.

The JI has shown its true colours several times in the past, only we Pakistanis were slow in recognising these religious fascists for what they are: religious fascists. And now this! This really takes the cake and I simply have to ask Hassan a question that Senator Zahid Khan asked: What does the Amir of the JI think of the many Jamaatis who lost their lives fighting the Afghan War against the Soviets during Afghanistan — I, in which they were not only helping and supporting the Americans but were also using their weapons and ammo and money? Incidentally, were the Americans who died fighting the god-less Soviets shaheeds?

Munawwar Hassan must resign or be made to leave: he is only sowing more confusion in an already confused country. Let the JI be proscribed for at least five years too, so no one dare denigrate the fine sacrifices of our young sons and daughters.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 12^th, 2013.

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