Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, which had gone into hibernation after getting a bloody nose in 2018, is back into action once again. After leading a big rally in Karachi, it is now holding a sit-in at Faizabad, blocking Islamabad-Rawalpindi traffic, preventing children from going to schools and employees to Islamabad Secretariat.
Attempts by Punjab’s ineffectual CM to stop the TLP supporters from holding the protest have failed. Despite raids and arrests in several cities and sealing Rawalpindi’s entry points with shipping containers, the protesters managed to reach Liqauat Bagh. Use of force to stop them from proceeding further led to clashes throughout the day on Sunday. During the clashes, CCTV cameras were broken at some of the metro bus stations while glass panes of the Sixth Road station and the elevator at Faizabad were damaged. While the attempts to stop the TLP activists made life miserable for the city’s denizens, thousands of protestors managed to reach Faizabad Interchange where they are staging a sit-in now.
The ominous sit-in brings back memories of TLP’s 2017 dharna which was aimed at weakening the PMLN’s position in the province. What purpose it is meant to serve now remains unknown. There is a perception that if the SC judgment on the 2017 Faizabad sit-in had been implemented, extremist networks like TLP would have been taken care of.
PM Imran Khan has condemned Charlie Hebdo’s Islamophobic cartoons. He has charged President Macron with deliberately provoking Muslims. There is little he could do beyond that. With most of the European governments standing solidly by President Macron, expelling the French ambassador as demanded by the TLP would have negative economic and diplomatic repercussions for Pakistan.
While firm action has been taken against terrorist organizations, one fails to understand why extremist networks have been allowed to operate in Pakistan causing problems for every elected government. By using religion for politics, like turning Pakistan into the state of Madina, Imran Khan has himself strengthened extremists who demand cutting off all diplomatic and economic relations with France. Until the country returns to the Quaid’s narrative of keeping religion out of politics, it would find hindrances in developing into a modern democracy.https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/11/16/extremism-remains-unbridled/
