The Punjab Home Department has started preparing a list of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah (TLYR) leaders for removing their names from the Fourth Schedule, according to a report by a private media outlet.
The department has decided that all these leaders would be kept under surveillance, but police are not going to interfere in their affairs, contrary to the other persons on Fourth Schedule.
The names of 30 Tehreek-e-Labbaik leaders, including Khadim Rizvi and Asif Jalali were included in the Fourth Schedule. An official notification has also been issued on the orders of the Punjab Home Department for releasing the 1,500 Tehreek-e-Labbaik workers and leaders, who were arrested during the Islamabad sit-in.
Rizvi, after making life difficult for the inhabitants and rulers in the federal capital, has recently announced a Lahore-Islamabad march in next month on the heels of the Faizabad disaster. Other religious leaders and people from different sectarian groups included in the 4th Schedule are: Pir Afzal Qadri (Alami Tanzeem Ahle Sunnat), Pir Ashraf Jalali (Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan), Aurangzeb Farooqi (Sipah-e-Sahaba), Allama Naseer Raza Safdar (Sahiwal), Qari Sakhawat Ali (Sialkot), Sabir Alvi (Gujranwala) and Allama Sajid Farooqi.
The Fourth Schedule is a list of proscribed individuals who are suspected of terrorism and/or sectarianism under Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), 1997. After credible intelligence information, their names are included in the Fourth Schedule as prescribed by the Home Department and can be subjected to restrictions on travel, speech and business.
Amir Zulfiqar, DIG (Operations), explained that the Fourth Schedulers were bound to submit surety bonds with the police stations concerned. He said if any of them created law and order situation, he would be booked under the ATA.
Additionally, Fourth Schedulers would inform the police station before leaving and returning TO their places, he added. Punjab government spokesman Malik Muhammad Ahmed Khan was asked as to how these persons manage to move freely, despite being the Fourth Schedulers with a clear intent to disrupt order. “The government is continuously looking into that matter from provincial to district level,” he replied.
“The Home Department and the deputy commissioner concerned, on the basis of intelligence reports, decide whether anyone should be expunged or placed on the Fourth Schedule. The Punjab government is strictly following the parameters set in the National Action Plan and no anti-state element will be allowed to work freely or mock the law,” the spokesman added.
