-Khadim Hussain Rizvi among other TLP members promoted #TLPPeacefulOrg on social media
LAHORE: After the highly condemnable attempted murder of Federal Minister for Interior Ahsan Iqbal and disclosure of the assassin as Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) affiliate, the religious outfit distanced itself from the attacker by preaching messages of peace and non-violence, Pakistan Today has observed.
In the heat of the moment, a hashtag #TLPPeacefulOrg was introduced on Twitter that has been used in over a hundred tweets since Sunday. A number of TLP leaders, including Rizvi himself, stuck to their keyboards and gave full coverage to the hashtag on all social media platforms.
Interestingly, the rather stagnant Twitter handle of Rizvi became actively involved in promoting the trend.
Quotations by Rizvi, that promote peace and love among Muslims, were shared by select users. One such tweet said, “Only the brave men and women can bring peace to the world, not by practicing war but by practicing nonviolence. #TLPPeacefulOrg Khadim Rizvi.”
Tehreek Labaik Pakistan is a peaceful organization always aiming to stabilize Pakistan and muslim ummah#TLPPeacefulOrg pic.twitter.com/jQoGUNgIyN
— Syed Ahmed Ali Shah (@SyedahmedMehrab) May 6, 2018
Tweets promoting TLP as a peaceful political front have mushroomed since a day after the attack. In some posts, the users are also busy separating the incident from the murder of Salman Taseer, a former Governor of Punjab and PPP leader who was assassinated in the capital by his own bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri owing to disagreement with Taseer’s position on the country’s blasphemy law.
The TLP had quickly read the situation on Sunday when reports of the assassination attempt on Iqbal that spread like wildfire on local as well as international media. Even before the attack’s initial report declared the attacker’s affiliation with TLP, the party “strictly condemned the attack” to distance itself from the assailant in its press statement, however, declared the situation a failure of the security agencies.
“If government cannot provide security to a federal minister then how can the general public consider itself safe,” TLP chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi asked.
Rizvi clarified that his party was peaceful and wanted to enforce shariat in the country through political struggle and elections. He said, “We do not promote any kind of violence.
