Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the "lack of evidence"

Supporters of Malik Ishaq who sits in a vehicle, a leader of the banned Sunni Muslim extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, receive their leader upon his release outside a jail in Lahore, Pakistan on Thursday, July 14, 2011. –AP Photo

LASHKAR-E-JHANGVI AND THE "LACK OF EVIDENCE"

We are ready to lay down lives (jaan bhee hazir hai) for the honour of the companions of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi leader Malik Ishaq said after he was freed from jail amid Kalashnikov-wielding supporters on a Land Cruiser motorcade. He did not specify whose lives he was talking about. But the Shia know.

The influential co-founder of a Sipah-e-Sahaba breakaway group now linked with al Qaeda and the Taliban received a stipend from the Punjab government while he was in jail, and like other key terror suspects, was allowed to use a mobile phone.

Malik Ishaq had told an Urdu daily in October 1997 that he was involved in the killing of 102 people. He was arrested the same year, and eventually charged with 70 of those murders in 44 different cases, including the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in March 2009. Last week, the Supreme Court released him because of “lack of evidence”.

Among those who fear the consequences is Fida Hussain Ghalvi, a key witness in a case in which Malik Ishaq was accused of killing 12 members of a Shia family during a Majlis in 1997. When Ghalvi and three other men identified Ishaq, he told them in front of a judge that “dead men can’t talk”. Five witnesses and three of their relatives were killed during the trial. Malik Ishaq was acquitted because of “lack of evidence”.

But that is just the tip of the iceberg. A more remarkable case involving the anti-Shia leader from southern Punjab was the bombing of an Iranian culture centre in Multan, also in 1997. Eight people were killed. When investigating officer Ijaz Shafi persuaded two witnesses to appear in court, his car was sprayed with 13 bullets. Anti-Terrorism Court judge Bashir Ahmed Bhatti convicted Ishaq but the Supreme Court overturned the conviction in 2006 because of “lack of evidence”.

In March 2007, the same judge, scheduled to hear another case against Malik Ishaq, was on his way to the court when a remote-controlled bicycle bomb exploded near his car, killing his driver and two policemen. Ishaq was charged with planning the bombing. Two years later, the prosecution’s witnesses suddenly turned hostile. Ishaq was acquitted in April 2009, because of “lack of evidence”.

In that context, it is very surprising that one of the Supreme Court judges who released Malik Ishaq on bail last week scolded the prosecution and said the case was weak. The same judge, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, was part of a Lahore Hight Court bench that had asked the police to close down cases of hate speech and incitement to violence, against Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed. The bench would simply not accept that Jamaatud Dawa was another name for Lashkar-e-Taiba, because the new name was not present on a certain list.

Malik Ishaq praised the Supreme Court after his release and said justice had been done. And that is ironic. Why do these people refer to the modern secular notions of law and justice when they do not believe in them? Because that is what gives them a decisive advantage. They have access to multiple epistemic devices. They can identify and exploit weak spots in our legal structure from outside, while simultaneously carrying out practices that are only justified in their own context. And that is why they are winning.

The state and its judiciary, on the other hand, insist on upholding the singular letter of law. They believe that is justice. But justice must question itself. Why should we abide by laws when dealing with people who simply do not believe in those laws? Why should we allow them the privileges of our legal system when they are fighting to replace it with their own?

Harris Bin Munawar is a media and culture critic and a news editor at The Friday Times.

THREE DEAD IN SUICIDE BLAST NEAR RAWALPINDI IMAMBARGAH

THREE DEAD IN SUICIDE BLAST NEAR RAWALPINDI IMAMBARGAH

RAWALPINDI: A powerful blast outside an Imambargah situated in the heavily guarded Gracey Lines area killed three people, including two policemen and left 14 injured.

According to News, policemen spotted a suspicious looking individual on a motorcycle in the parking lot of the Imambargah near the Nur Khan Air Base. The attacker blew himself up when the policemen tried to tackle him.

About 700 people were attending a majlis at the time of the attack. As a result three people, including a SHO lost their lives. The dead and the injured were taken to the Benazir Bhutto Hospital and District Headquarters Hospital.

“We have three bodies and 14 wounded people at our hospital,” Asif Qadir Mir, chief of the local government hospital, told AFP. The blast was heard far away. Police and military personnel cordoned off the area and all roads leading to Gracy Lane were closed to traffic.

Khalid Mehmood, the driver of a police van who was on duty at the Imambagah, said a man parked his motorcycle by the roadside and started walking towards the Imambargah. When Sub-Inspector Amanat Ali and other policemen asked him to stop for search, he detonated the bomb.

City Police Officer Akhtar Umar Lalika told that it was a suicide attack. The bomber blew himself up when he was intercepted by policemen outside the Imambargah. Several bikes and cars parked outside the Imambargah were damaged.

According to bomb disposal experts, four to five pounds of high explosives, laced with ball-bearings, were used in the attack. The head and legs were believed to be of the bomber. Black clothes and a green jacket were retrieved from the scene.

A damaged pistol, wooden butt of a rifle and four spent bullet casings were also found. However, it could not be ascertained whether the pistol belonged to the suicide bomber or police.

Majlis-i-Wahadat-Muslameen (MWM), Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Fiqh-i-Jafaria condemned the attack and said that the government has failed to curb sectarian violence in the country.

There has been a rise in sectarian violence in Pakistan after several deadly clashes between Sunni and Shia Muslim groups near Islamabad in November. Allama Nasir Abbas, a Shia cleric, was killed late Sunday in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, after addressing a religious gathering.

On November 19, gunmen killed a senior Shia university director along with his driver in Lahore, while another Shia leader and his guard were killed in Karachi in early December. Three days later, Shamsur Rehman Muawiya, chief of the Sunni organisation Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jammat for Punjab province, was killed in Lahore.

Pakistan is rife with sectarian clashes, with Sunni militant groups linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban often attacking gatherings by Shias, who constitute some 20 per cent of the country's population.