‘Hate speech’: ASWJ chief, 200 activists booked

Spokesperson says people shouting sectarian slogans were not party workers .

ISLAMABAD:

The police have booked over 200 leaders and activists of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) on charges of hate speech and clashing with the police during a protest on Sunday.

ASWJ had taken out a rally from Lal Masjid to the Supreme Court building after a party office bearer was gunned down in Rawalpindi on Sunday.

An FIR registered at the Secretariat Police Station against 12 named and over 200 unidentified persons also cites a violation of the Amplifier Act and Section 144.

Mazhar Siddiqui, the party’s Rawalpindi spokesperson, was shot dead by unidentified motorcyclists on IJ Principal Road in the jurisdiction of the Sabzi Mandi police. ASWJ officials said he was the 18th party worker killed during the last 18 months.

Following the incidents, angry party workers brought the body outside Lal Masjid, where they initially planned to offer funeral prayers, but instead staged a sit-in in front of the Supreme Court building.

The police initially tried to stop the protesters from entering the Red Zone by using their batons and firing tear gas, but eventually let them through after a brief scuffle. The protesters held a sit-in outside the Supreme Court building and demanded the arrest of the killers.

The protest was called off a few hours later after Adviser to the Prime Minister Irfan Siddiqui held negotiations with ASWJ leaders and assured them that a committee to probe party workers’ killings would be constituted.

Secretariat SHO Muhammad Bhatti said ASWJ chief Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi’s name is mentioned in the FIR and he along with other party activists have been booked in the case. “The protest was organized on the behest of the party chief.”

The police have also charged protesters with using sectarian language, which the party denies.

ASWJ Islamabad spokesperson Hafiz Oneeb Farooqi said the authorities were not serious about arresting the culprits. He said that no sectarian slogan was raised on stage.

Farooqi said that those who chanted sectarian slogans might have been outsiders. “Our protest was not against any party. It was for the immediate arrest of the culprits,” he said.

The police had arrested 14 activists on Sunday. They were released on bail on Monday morning.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 17^th, 2015.