The Mullah got his first taste bf power when in
December 1979 Soviet military invaded and occupied Afghanistan. The US,
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia got together to fight them out. A resistance force
called Mujahideen, also known the Taliban, was recruited for the purpose.
Washington provided the weapons and training. Riyadh gave money and Islamabad
the crucial logistic support. The outcome was a resounding success for the US.
Its rival was eliminated and it became world’s sole super power. However,
Pakistan suffered a lot as a result of the fall out this war. It was inundated
with guns and heroin. The Taliban who had nothing else to do now infiltrated
into Pakistan’s tribal areas along Afghanistan’s border, to establish pockets
of their influence there.
Lal Masjid episode is the culmination of this
historical process and is symbolic of Pakistan’s today’s difficulties. Ayub
Khan during his times gave the charge of Lal Masjid to a harmless looking
Mullah named Abdullah without realizing that he was laying the foundation stone
of a national crisis that one day will rock Pakistan down to its foundations.
The Maulana was later murdered. President Zia-ul-Haq gave the possession of the
mosque to his two sons Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Pervez
Musharraf’s, permitted Ghazi brothers to build Jamia Hafsa on the state land
right in the heart of Islamabad. They did it in good faith, of course. without
ever suspecting that the brothers were capable of biting the hand that feeds
them.
The two brothers, with state patronage at hand,
thousands of students under command, free inflow of funds, arms and ammunition,
assurance of militant support by the Taliban, lost their head and started
challenging the writ of the state openly. They set up their own Shariat Court.
forcibly occupied the nearby children library, abducted citizens, hauled up
policemen and their vehicles, ransacked the video shops and as if that was not
enough had the courage to abduct Chinese and keep them in illegal confinement
on charges of prostitution. As such they established a state within a state.
The government helplessly looked on. But the day of reckoning was not far off.
Some five months after all this lawlessness had
begun, the government moved to put an end to it. The action took place between
July 3 and 10, 2007. The hardliners in the mosque fired and killed security
personnel. The government opened negotiations to solve the matter amicably
which failed due to the characteristic obstinacy of the Mullah. The security
forces launched operation to subdue the militants. In the encounters that
followed a few security men met martyrdom and a large number of militants
including Abdul Rashid Ghazi got killed. The control of Jamia Hafsa and La! Masjid
could be secured after much loss of life.