PML-N awards ticket to Sipah-e-Sahaba leader who placed bounty on Taseer

Besides fielding the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi-linked Chaudhry Abid Raza from NA-107 (Gujrat), the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has awarded another party ticket to Sardar Ebaad Dogar from NA-178 despite his being an ardent disciple of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) who had announced Rs20 million-bounty to assassinate Salman Taseer for siding with an alleged blasphemy accused, Aasia Bibi.

On January 5, 2011, hardly a day after Salman Taseer’s assassination, Ebaad Dogar was arrested by the police for interrogation in connection with Taseer’s murder, mainly because of the hate speeches he had delivered and the bounty announcement. Ebaad denied involvement in the assassination saying his anti-Taseer statements and the head money declaration were only symbolic and he was not the only one to have declared the former governor a blasphemer. He was subsequently released and placed under house arrest. Ebaad Dogar is contesting the general election for the first time from NA-178 and is facing Nawabzada Iftikhar Ahmad Khan, a PPP ticket holder and the son of late Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, and Jamshed Dasti, a former PPP MNA who quit the party before the elections.

Although the secret seat adjustment deal reached between then Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif and Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi suffered a major setback because of Sheikh Waqas Akram’s decision to join the PML-N, the party top brass still decided to magnetise the vote bank of the banned Sunni Deobandi sectarian parties by fielding their disciples in the elections from the PML-N platform. While Abid Raza from NA-107 (Gujrat) is an alleged LeJ-linked terror suspect who has already spent five years in jail on murder charges and had known links with al Qaeda linchpin Amjad Farooqi, Sardar Ebaad Dogar is a hardcore sectarian devotee and a former office-bearer of the of the SSP, having close ties with the leadership of the ASWJ, which is said to be the parent organisation of the LeJ.

The footprints of the SSP/ASWJ are scattered all over in Muzaffargarh district of south Punjab, which is home to thousands of large and small seminaries. Before joining the SSP, Ebaad Dogar had served as the tehsil Nazim of Khangarh after being elected from the platform of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Having quit a religio-political JUI-F, Dogar had joined a Sunni Deobandi sectarian Sipah-e-Sahaba, only to become a prominent leader of the organisation in his ancestral area in a short span of time. However, his decision to run on a PML-N ticket instead of using the SSP/ASWJ platform is astonishing for many.

A careful study of the newspaper files of 2011 reveal that Sardar Ebaad Dogar had even told the local media persons in Khangarh shortly after Taseer’s murder that he felt no shame in having offered the Rs20-million bounty on his head.

Approached for comments, a senior leader of the PML-N justified the awarding of the party ticket to Ebaad Dogar, adding that he had an unblemished past due to which the Election Commission of Pakistan did not raise any objection to his nomination papers. “As far as Salman Taseer’s assassination is concerned, Sardar Ebaad Dogar was never indicted by police for inciting the murder, as being alleged by his political opponents”, he added.

On the contrary, however, in an interview with a private television channel on April 22, 2013, Nawaz Sharif had said he never knew [while awarding party tickets] that Sardar Ebaad Dogar belonged to the SSP and that he had announced Rs20 million-bounty on Salman Taseer. Nawaz Sharif said that having come to know of this fact, he would look into the issue and take appropriate action.