Death of a cleric News Archive News

Abdul Rashid Ghazi’s exit — and Operation Silence — could mark a new beginning in Pakistan. Is the government backtracking on the military-mullah alliance?

Written by Mirasethi

July 12, 2007 12:00 AM IST

4 min read

Like Danny Pearl’s abductor Omar Sheikh, Abdul Rashid had an unlikely start. As a child, his father Maulana Abdullah enrolled him at a madrassa but the young Rashid ran away. Later he went on to study at Pakistan’s prominent Quaid-e-Azam university, graduating with a master’s degree in international relations. He applied for a job at the Ministry of Education and got it. Unlike his elder brother Abdul Aziz who complied with his father’s wishes, Rashid refused to grow a beard and refrained from using the title Hafiz (someone who has memorised the Quran). His behaviour irked his father to the extent that he made Abdul Aziz the sole heir in his will.

Rashid’s behaviour changed after his father’s death. In 1998 Maulana Abdullah was assassinated by a gunman from a rival Islamic sect in the courtyard of Lal Masjid. Maulana Abdullah’s murder seems to mark the beginning of Rashid’s transformation from moderate to militant — that is when he also added the ‘Ghazi’ to his name, meaning a victorious soldier of Islam; the assassination of his father propelled both brothers into leadership roles at Lal Masjid. Although Rashid-Ghazi continued with his job at the Ministry of Education, his elder brother facilitated his Islamic re-education and made him his deputy at the mosque.

Following President Musharraf’s decision to assist the US in Afghanistan in 2001, the unassuming Ghazi became an outspoken critic of Musharraf by leading the religious alliance opposed to the US invasion of Afghanistan. Things came to a head in 2004 over the state operation against pro-Taliban militants in the tribal areas. Ghazi, like other religious leaders, waged a campaign against the government and calls for Musharraf’s assassination began to be made from Lal Masjid. The mosque and its two affiliated madrassas — Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Faridia — were becoming centres of Islamic radicalism.

Over the last year the two brothers, Aziz and Ghazi, had begun to challenge the government’s control and authority in Islamabad. After raiding the children’s library, they sent armed seminary students on vigilante anti-vice missions, during which they sometimes kidnapped police officers. They raided DVD stores and kidnapped Chinese beauticians, after accusing them of running a brothel.

Although the government issued a warrant for Ghazi’s arrest, no concerted effort was made to detain him until the commencement of ‘Operation Silence’. A day before his death, thousands of tribesmen, including hundreds of masked militants wielding rifles demonstrated in the northwest region of Bajaur chanting ‘Death to Musharraf!’ and ‘Death to America!’

Ghazi refused to surrender. When night-long negotiations seeking a peaceful end to the standoff finally broke down, security forces launched their final assault and Ghazi died, a ‘martyr’.

Although Ghazi will be lionised by his followers and the short-term fallout will see attacks on security forces in the tribal areas, Pakistani commentators have argued that his death — and the Lal Masjid operation — will have a positive long-term effect by giving the message that Pakistan’s state will not tolerate terrorism and extremism. The Lal Masjid operation is a decisive first step taken by the government to end the impression of a military-mullah alliance.

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As for Ghazi, a cleric who carried an AK-47 in his car, near his work desk and near his bed when he slept, he will be remembered only by those who live by the gun.

The writer is a south asian studies major at Wellesley College, USM

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