Army troops man a road block in Rawalpindi on November 16, 2013. PHOTO: AFP
As the Punjab government probes the Rawalpindi incident, religious leaders have asked that the inquiry’s scope must include the fixing of responsibility on the culprits.
“It should not be limited to just fact-finding so that the common people can be bluffed,” said the president of Milli Yakjahti Council, a group of religious and sectarian parties, Sahibzada Al Khair Muhammad Zubair. “The miscreants should be exposed and punished.”
The reaction came after Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah announced that three separate probes will be conducted to ascertain facts behind the incident. The judicial commission, headed by Justice Mamoon Rashid Sheikh of Lahore High Court, a fact-finding team of the Punjab government and a crime investigation team by the local police will conduct separate investigations.
At a press conference on Monday, Zubair spoke sternly against the provincial government’s inaction and its failure to prevent the episode. “We all saw how miserably the district administration and the provincial government came unstuck. It seems this commission has been made to put the things in cold storage.”
The MYC’s leader maintained that foreign hands were involved in the incident, citing similar patterns in the sectarian strife in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. “The elements working on foreign agenda are trying to plunge the country in sectarianism. The way people from Shia and Sunni sects were killed in Karachi is an example of their involvement.”
Zubair said that the MYC will convene a meeting in Islamabad on November 27, which will be attended by leaders of all religious parties. According to him, the event will form long-term policies to curb sectarianism through joint efforts.
The Majlis-i-Wahdatul Muslimeen’s (MWM) provincial leader, Imdad Naseemi, said that all sectarian parties will accept the judicial commission’s report even if it incriminated the supporters of a particular group - only if an impartial probe is conducted.
The leaders of Jamiat-i-Islami, Majlis-i-Wahdatul Muslimeen, Shia Ulema Council, Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Pakistan, Jamiat-i-Ahle Haddis and other parties also attended the meeting.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2013.
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