The Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat is reportedly not ready to own slain Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) militant Malik Ishaq, who was gunned down along with his two sons and 11 others in Muzaffargarh district in a encounter with the police on Tuesday night, a report in the local media said on Thursday.
According to a report appearing in Dawn, an anonymous ASWJ leader said they were a ‘peace-loving party’ and could not own a person with militant background “so there is no question of protesting on roads against the death of Malik Ishaq and others”.
He said that the party also lacked street power as madrassas linked with the outfit are closed these days.
Malik Ishaq, who was killed during protective police custody in Muzaffargarh on Wednesday, was a controversial leader even within his own party. He had parted ways with the defunct Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) after differences on how to treat a certain religious sect and formed his own group, the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.
The ASWJ, currently led by Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, emerged after the SSP was banned and some well-wishers of the two groups attempted to unite them under one umbrella. Malik Ishaq was made vice-president of the outfit. However, he was removed from the office within months after he was jailed again.
His group contested intra-party polls but lost badly to the Ludhianvi group, which supported legal ways and means for countering a rival sect. In the last elections, for example, for Punjab chapter president his nominee and Maulana Azam Tariq’s son could not get more than a dozen votes against 1,200 of the rival group’s Shamsur Rehman, who was shot dead in Lahore some months ago.
Sources said that Malik Ishaq did not spare even leaders of his own sect for keeping control over the party, which continued to slip out of his hands because of his long imprisonment.
