On 16 May 2015, the Corps Commander Karachi, Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar, whilst addressing a seminar organized by the National Defence University, claimed that the Karachi operation is completely apolitical, adding that it will continue without discrimination. He said, “We are committed to eliminate all forms of terrorism… the problems of Karachi are a result of political, sectarian and ethnic rivalries.” Though the regime claims that the operations have no political agenda, it is focusing its onslaught on the Islam loving people, whilst using token measures against secular parties as a cover to avert criticism.
Since March 2015, the Raheel-Nawaz regime has undertaken well-publicized movements against the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and has congratulated itself consistently on this action. The raid on MQM headquarters, arrest of high profile target killers and then the Saulat Mirza statement regarding murder of the KESC Managing Director on directives of the MQM Chief, Altaf Hussain, at the residence of the MQM leader Babar Ghouri, has been projected to clean the government reputation regarding its National Action Plan. The regime has projected it to show that General Raheel Shareef to shown seriousness in maintaining peace in Karachi. These actions against MQM demand close scrutiny to expose the regimes motives behind these operations. The MQM’s brutality over the last two decades is not a secret or a new revelation, so why has it made a big show of clamping down on MQM now?
The current actions are devoid of the necessary steps to curb any movement or group, against whom the regime is serious to take action. Any regime that is serious in action against MQM will firstly cut the telephone contact the organization maintains with its head in London, through which he addresses his supporters, gives media interviews and passes on directives to the operatives in Karachi. However, all this is happening with even greater intensity this time. Media anchors took live interviews throughout the crisis which was a very rare reality to occur in past decades. Furthermore, though the raid took place at the MQM headquarter, all zonal offices, which they name as sectors and units, are left to function normally. The committee of its leader, responsible for conducting activities in the country, called the Rabita Committee (Contact Committee) is functioning as normal, with the arrest of only one of its members during the raid.
Had the regime been serious in maintaining peace in the city, it would have rounded up political offices and residence of other parties in the city, to remove weapons from their custody and barricades placed on the roads by them. More importantly, we would have been witnessing actions against the all-exposed Raymond Davis network and other American mischief-makers fueling the war against the people of Pakistan. Thus, action against MQM is not aimed at maintaining peace in Karachi or to remove all armed groups and criminal mafia from the city, rather it is hollow, lacks weight and raises questions regarding the regime’s motives behind these actions.
The answer to this question is that the regime is pursuing the National Action Plan across the country with full force, persecuting the Islamic loving people and using actions against secular people as a cover. As of April 2015, law enforcement agencies arrested 25,896 people on different charges across the country. The report states that security agencies conducted 24,844 combing operations all over the country. Of these 13,288 operations were conducted in Punjab, 4,252 in Sindh, 5,456 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 66 in Baluchistan, 393 in Islamabad, 1252 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), 54 in Gigit Baltistan (GB) and 83 in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). In these operations, 3,906 people were arrested by police on violation of law on the use of loudspeaker, including 2,874 in Punjab alone. In total, 737 cases were registered for spreading hate speech and material. So far 745 people were arrested and a total of 69 shops sealed on the same charges. Additionally, there is the banning of the entrance of foreign students to Islamic Madrassahs of Pakistan and their foreign funding, whether from individuals or governments, has been banned. As for Karachi, since the start of operations in September 2013, more than 50,000 people have been arrested, hundreds are missing and similar numbers are of those killed in encounters.
Not surprisingly, the National Action Plan and its implementation so far has caused a lot of hue and cry from the religious parties. Ulema have exposed the regime’s actions as aimed against the religious people, whilst giving free hand to political and nationalist parties and their armed gangs. On 12 February 2015 it was reported that the Ittehad-e-Tanzeemat-e-Madaris Pakistan (ITMP), which oversees tens of thousands of religious institutions in the country, is at odds with the government over its plan to keep a close eye on seminaries through new measures under its National Action Plan (NAP). On 17th February 2015, Mufti Naeem said that there are almost 4,000,000 local and foreign students acquiring education at 23,000 seminaries affiliated with the Wafaqul Madaris, with chaos ensuing the government’s decision. The renowned Aalim maintained that all religious forces are united “to fight a conspiracy to turn Pakistan into a secular state.” On 2 March 2015, the Ittehadul Tanzeemat-i-Madaris, an organization of the five Waqf (federations) of religious institutions, has decided to clearly and strongly reject the regimes’ actions against the Islamic Madaris (seminaries) and also refuse all “unconstitutional” actions of the rulers who, it alleged, are pursuing the plan of imperial powers. They alleged, the regime was bent upon advancing the designs of the United States and the West against Islam and an anti-Islam plan was being pursued through harassment, as well as arrests of the Ulema and the ban on the utilization of Masjid loudspeakers. On 14 March 2015, talking to media after a meeting of Ittehad-e-Tanzeemaat-e-Madaris, Mufti Muneeb ur Rehman said that none of the state institutions can be allowed to push religion under the state’s control. On one occasion he said, terrorism was of various forms and shapes, however, only the Madaris were being focused and added that the crackdown on the seminaries wasn’t suspended even for a single day.
All this is asides from the campaign of the regime against the leading advocates for Khilafah in the country, the Shabaab of 000 000. Dozens have been arrested in raids which did not even spare a women with a physically disabled child in her arms and included the abduction and disappearance of three Shabaab in Karachi.
Thus, it is evident that actions in accordance with the NAP has provoked resentment amongst the Ulema specifically and the people of Pakistan in general. Such feeling regarding the NAP amongst the people of Pakistan is a danger for the regime in Pakistan and its master in Washington, in their campaign of war against Islam. Therefore, to neutralize this impression, action has been taken against MQM to give credibility to the National Action Plan and building a narrative that the National Action Plan is against all mischief makers. Soon after the raid at MQM headquarters, a debate arose about discrimination. Columnist Arif Nizami pointed out that, “Unless the operation against criminal elements is seen as even-handed and across the board, without making any exceptions, it will lose its efficacy”. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Karachi President Ali Zaidi, demanded all the criminals caught in Karachi should be tried in military courts irrespective of their political affiliation. As for the regime, it presented itself in the face of the debate as apolitical in its agenda. Information Minister, Senator Pervaiz Rashid, said “If there is a criminal in a Madressah (seminary) or in the office of a political party he will be arrested and any hurdle in the process will be removed.” Though the regime’s agenda of war against Islam boiled to the surface later when on May 3, Rashid denounced the seminaries as ‘centers of ignorance and illiteracy’. He accused Islamic seminaries of spreading ideology of hatred and conservativeness to the society.
The regime’s token measures against the MQM are a face-saving measure, to give credibility to American dictated national action plan and appease the Islam loving people, by showing operations are against all miscreants, without discrimination. Also, this serves as the beginning of full-fledged operations in Karachi, which is a long-standing American demand, as America knows well that there is huge support in Karachi for the implementation of Islam in Pakistan and Jihad in Afghanistan. Indeed, the Americans pushed the former army chief, General Kayani, to move against the Pushtoon elements in Karachi, who are the backbone of Jihad in Afghanistan. Karachi has the world’s largest population of Pushtoon, more than even Kabul or Peshawar, who have strong relations with the fighting Pushtoon of the tribal areas. Since Pakistan’s formation, Karachi is a grand center for the teaching of Islam and all its obligations, including Jihad against the Kuffar. The US intensified this call after the American announcement of the incident of Faisal Shehzad in Times Square in New York on 1/5/2010, allowing America to raise Karachi into the limelight. The United States said that Shehzad was able to move freely in Karachi had been in contact tribal fighters. For this purpose, on 9 August 2011, the former Sindh Interior Minister, Manzoor Wisan, after meeting the US Counsel-General William Martin, confirmed that America is ready to supply both equipment and expertise for Karachi. Towing the same line, Army Chief, General Raheel Sharif, heading the meeting of top generals of the armed forces on 5th May, 2015, directed all concerned officials to intensify intelligence-based operations against criminals, terrorists and their abettors in the country’s urban areas. Then the Raheel-Nawaz regime renewed America’s calls for intensifying operations, after heavily armed miscreants struck on 13 May 2015, in one of the most organised and ruthless attacks in the city’s history, killing 45 in a bus near Safoora Goth.
Thus, America’s agents in Pakistan’s political and military leadership have launched an extensive and long campaign in Karachi. They have imposed draconian laws that grant legal cover for abduction and killings after abduction. They claim their actions are against kidnappers, extortionists and target killers, but they are actually a cover to assassinate, abduct, arrest or silence those who either fight or call for Jihad against America, including several key fighter commanders and Ulema. The criminal regime maintains this lie, even though to end the bloodshed in Karachi only requires a few days, by sealing the American consulate and rounding up the personnel of America’s Raymond Davis network. Only the upcoming Khilafah can establish lasting peace in Karachi by closing American embassy, expelling its ambassador, ruining the safe heavens of Raymond Davis network, shutting the supply line and making the forces of Pakistan stands in the face of the US aggression in Afghanistan and Pakistan to rid the region of American evil presence.
وَعَدَ اللَّهُ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا مِنْكُمْ وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ لَيَسْتَخْلِفَنَّهُم فِي الأَرْضِ كَمَا اسْتَخْلَفَ الَّذِينَ مِنْ قَبْلِهِمْ وَلَيُمَكِّنَنَّ لَهُمْ دِينَهُمُ الَّذِي ارْتَضَى لَهُمْ وَلَيُبَدِّلَنَّهُمْ مِنْ بَعْدِ خَوْفِهِمْ
“Allah has promised those among you who believe and do righteous good deeds, that He will certainly grant them succession in the land, as He granted it to those before them, and that He will grant them the authority to practice their religion which He has chosen for them. And He will surely, give them in exchange a safe security after their fear.”
(Surah Nur 24:55)
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Engineer Saham, Pakistan