- Punjab government caves in before violent extremists
The ruling family’s draining ongoing corruption cases and the government’s understandable sensitivity to looming national elections have made all well-directed administrative work well nigh impossible, and the ‘reluctant’ prime minister’s feeble response to issues big and small has largely lain within the realm of indecision and dilatory, evasive tactics. Now the Punjab Khadim-e-Aala, who in normal times presented the very picture of restless energy, firmness and command, has also gotten into the spinelessness act, with an apparently humiliating and opportunistic capitulation to the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) chief, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, and other party leaders, who had been declared proclaimed offenders by an anti-terrorist court (ATC) for acts of violence instigated and committed during their three-week sit-in at the capital’s Faizabad interchange during November 2017.
The belated deal ending the original Faizabad protest, arbitrated by the army, became a non-starter as some conditions, especially the release of rioting TLP workers arrested under stringent anti-terrorism laws, could not be fulfilled, at which the party leadership cried foul and started a ‘sequel’ sit-in at Lahore’s busy Data Darbar chowk, also a major inter-city artery, causing traffic snarls and general inconvenience, while daily making threatening pronouncements of country wide sit-ins in future. Their main demands were, making public the related Raja Zafarul Haq Report, release of all arrested party workers, payment of compensation to heirs of those killed, government to foot the bill for damage to property, punishment for those using force against protestors, and implementation of Faizabad accord in toto.
Finding itself between a rock and a hard place, and with no ‘outside help’ forthcoming on this occasion, the Punjab government gave in to the TLP leadership after 11 days of the Lahore sit-in, reportedly accepting all its six (and counting) demands. The rest was easy, with the prosecution submitting an application in the ATC for halting proceedings pending a fresh investigation and final report, and the case now stands duly adjourned for an indefinite period. The state’s writ was brazenly challenged, but rather than follow the letter of the law, political and personal exigencies unfortunately led to the government’s tame surrender, a miscalculation that may return to haunt it.
