Once again Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has bowed before radical clerics, allowing them  to hoist Taliban flags atop the infamous Lal Masjid, situated in the heart of the capital Islamabad. The Taliban flags have now “reappeared,” after they were removed a few days back by the Pakistani security forces. In a viral video, the head cleric of the Lal Masjid Maulana Abdul Aziz was seen with a Kalashnikov threatening the Pakistani forces of dire consequences if they removed those flags. “The Pakistan Taliban will teach you all a lesson,” he threatened them.

Why do Pak policemen want to remove Taliban flags from Jamia Hafsa, as their leaders, army, ISI have always supported #Taliban in its war against #Afghanistan ?

Well said Red Mosque's Maulana Abdul Aziz, Pakistan 🇵🇰 soon to be Taliban#SanctionPakistan pic.twitter.com/fHNOm3AInE

— INDIA NARRATIVE (@india_narrative) September 18, 2021

An Islamic fundamentalist, Maulana Aziz had issued a “fatwa” that no one would attend the funerals of Pakistani soldiers and called for “agitations” against the government. As expected, the government had to surrender to him to keep the situation normal in the capital, which is already grabbing headlines after the New Zealand cricket team left the country without playing a single game, citing security concerns. 

"That's why we keep talking to them," reported Pakistani daily Dawn quoting the Interior Minister of Pakistan Sheikh Rashid as saying. 

"There were several cases against Maulana Aziz but the government wanted the situation in the capital to remain normal. Every day he (Maulana Aziz) has an issue and every day we try to resolve it," he said. 

After the meeting with the government, Maulana Aziz released an audio message claiming that the Pakistani government has accepted all his demands but “the major demand was imposition of Shariah” in Pakistan.  

According to the report, there are 511 madrassas and 1,000 mosques in the capital and almost all of them are sympathisers of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistan Taliban, and Afghan Taliban. Earlier when Kabul fell to the Taliban last month, Maulana Aziz had hoisted the Taliban flags on the top of the Lal Masjid and other seminaries including Jamia Hafsa to congratulate the Afghan Taliban. 

Aziz’s action underscores the strong support for the militant group within Pakistan, where media, religious parties, and even some government officials openly celebrated the Taliban victory of Kabul in August.

Who is Maulana Abdul Aziz?

The 58-year-old Aziz, is “Khateeb” (sermon giver) of the Lal Masjid and chancellor of its seminaries, Jamia Hafsa ana Jamila Faridia, educational institutions for boys and girls. Apart from these, the Lal Masjid has hundreds of madrassas across the country. He came in the spotlight when he and his hundreds of students came down on the streets of Islamabad to enforce strict religious law in Islamabad. He threatened General Musharraf, former President of Pakistan, “if the government fails to eradicate all these moral evils from the society within the specified period of one month the students of the seminary will themselves take actions against all the people involved in such activities.”

Maulana Aziz announced the establishment of a religious court within the precincts of the seminary and appointed a panel of "ten eminent jurists, well versed in Islamic law" as judges of the court. The female religious burqa clad students of the seminary stunned the Musharraf regime when they raided an alleged brothel and kidnapped three women from there. At that time the students vowed to continue their moral crusade against immoral activities in Islamabad. His students were known as “Lal Masjid Brigade”.

But when his brigade kidnapped Chinese workers, under tremendous pressure, Musharraf asked his army to raid the Lal Masjid and other premises. Pakistani security forces launched “operation Sunrise” and stormed the Lal Masjid compound on July 10, 2007 following a week-long siege after supporters of radical clerics there refused to surrender. The violent end of the standoff left more than 100 militants dead. It marked a significant period in Pakistan’s struggle with Islamic militancy. Al-Qaeda called for revenge. In an audio message Osama bin Laden described Aziz as a “hero of Islam” and declared an all-out war against the Pakistani military.

Six months after Operation Sunrise on December 14, 2007, some 40 militant leaders, commanding 40,000 militant fighters, gathered in South Waziristan to form a united front under the banner of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The birth of the TTP was another major turning point in the rise of insurgency in north-western Pakistan and the tribal areas. About 70 percent of the students of the madrassas of Lal Masjid came from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) territories and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and many of them returned home to join the insurgency.

Maulana Abdul Aziz was arrested by the Musharraf regime and served a two-year prison term but he was released by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2009 and he was greeted by tens of thousands of his supporters. In 2013, all charges against him were quashed. 

Back to the present, there are fears that Islamabad is at the brink of another encounter between religious seminary students and the Pakistani government, with the mosque located less than half a kilometre away from Islamabad’s Red Zone, where government offices, Prime Minister’s residence and parliament buildings are located.

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