On 19 January 2019, government security officials shot into a small car travelling in broad daylight on a major road near Sahiwal toll plaza. Along with a family friend, parents with their teenage daughter were killed in a hail of bullets, whilst their three younger children, one of whom who was shot in the leg, survived. The elaborate report by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) claimed that the family friend was a wanted terrorist who opened fire, whilst three terrorists fled on a motorcycle, and also that a suicide vest, hand grenades, rifles and other weapons were recovered from the scene. However, eye witnesses reported that CTD officials opened fire into a small car, despite pleas from a family that was travelling from Lahore to a wedding, with no recovery of either weapons or explosives.
The brazen use of excessive force by the CTD, followed by fabrication, has become the hallmark of an institution established after Pakistan’s rulers fully committed to the US “War on Terror” in Pakistan. Houses are raided without care for the privacy of the home or the honour of the womenfolk. Cash is seized, including Zakah, without official record and never returned. Those who expose pro-US policies are harassed, tortured and even abducted. Even after release, those who have fallen into the hands of the CTD even once are constantly harassed and persecuted over years. Rather than acting as a sincere guardian for the citizens, the state has become a ruthless colonialist-era administrator, forcefully subduing an entire population. Rather than securing the honour, property and lives of its citizens, the state recklessly strives to earn dollars by fulfilling US requirements that were determined after its brutal occupation of neighbouring Afghanistan.
O Muslims of Pakistan! Despite his pre-election promise to stop acting as hired guns for the US, Imran Khan remains fully committed to the “US War on Terror” and so maintains Pakistan as an iron-fisted police state, beyond any accountability or criticism. Let the pure blood spilled and children orphaned in the Sahiwal firing be the last grievous losses we bear as a consequence of the Bajwa-Imran’s regime blind cling to alliance with the word’s global terrorist, the US. Let us not be deluded by the illusion of tribunals and inquiries, which are merely to prolong the life of a failed system and a despicable alliance. Let us demand the immediate abolition of the Counter Terrorism Department and Pakistan’s exit from all obligations and commitments to the US. And above all else let us demand the re-establishment of the Khilafah (Caliphate) on the Method of Prophethood, which alone is the faithful guardian of Muslims and Islam. RasulAllah ﷺ said, «إِنَّمَا الْإِمَامُ جُنَّةٌ يُقَاتَلُ مِنْ وَرَائِهِ وَيُتَّقَى بِهِ» “The Imam is but a shield, behind whom the Muslims fight and by whom they are protected.” [Muslim]
Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Wilayah Pakistan
Sunday, 14th Jumada l 1440 AH
20/01/2019 CE
No: 1440 / 24