International
Isolated protests against Pak. crackdown
By B. Muralidhar Reddy
ISLAMABAD, JAN. 21. The first rumblings of protest since the Pakistan Government intensified its crackdown on jehadi and militant outfits last week have been heard from the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).
However, the protest is considered an isolated incident and not a reflection of the ground realities. Political and diplomatic observers believe that considering the nature and extent of the crackdown, the Musharraf Government has done a remarkable job in keeping the jehadi elements under check.
According to reports from Peshawar, supporters of the banned Islamic group, Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Mohammedi (TNSM), held a protest demonstration against the detention of its leaders and cadres. The protest turned violent when a group of the demonstrators threw stones at police in Dir. The TNSM chief has been accused of leading hundreds of Pakistanis to Afghanistan to fight along with the Taliban militia.
Barring this there has hardly been any opposition to the crackdown by the Government against the extremist religious and militant outfits. There are indications that the measures unveiled by Gen. Musharraf have been widely welcomed.
Meanwhile, reports in the local media suggest that the Government is considering releasing the activists arrested for their alleged affiliation to sectarian and jehadi outfits on submission of affidavits that they would dissociate themselves from the outlawed outfits forever.
The reports said that the Jamat-e-Islami and the JUI (F) have assured the Government that they would not take to the streets if their leaders were released. The Government is believed to have told them that if they agreed to support the Government's actions and electoral reforms, their leaders would be freed.
`Army, ISI culpable'
In a related development, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the chief of his own faction of the JUI, has said that the army and the ISI had been responsible for evils in Pakistan. In an interview to a weekly, Takbeer he has said that the army and the ISI had been involved in each and every affair of the country and could not escape responsibility.
Asked why some of the religious groups, Islamic movements and jehadi outfits have been involved in armed attacks on different countries and provoking the people, which is contrary to the Constitution, Fazlur Rehman said, ``if this attitude is unconstitutional then we should clear the position. If Soviet Union invades Afghanistan, we send Mujahideen from here. We provide camps to Mujahideen coming from there. Religious parties are given the task of preparing youth for jehad. They are trained in a jehadi culture and army continues to encourage them. The State encourages them. At that time, it was not unconstitutional.
``For the last 20 years, we have been doing all this. We have got a generation, which knows nothing except jehad. Were the Army and the ISI not involved in this? Whether the issue is Taliban or Afghanistan, the Army and the ISI have been linked with these issues,'' he told the weekly.
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