ISLAMABAD, 8 October 2003 — Pakistan’s government yesterday condemned the killing of hard-line Sunni politician Azam Tariq and four others as an act of terrorism, while critics accused it of a gross security failure.
“The assassination is highly condemnable and the government is making every effort to trace the culprits,” Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told AFP.
Tariq, charged with ordering and planning the murders of more than 100 followers of the rival Shiite sect, was shot dead on Monday by at least three gunmen on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad.
The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal alliance of Islamist parties accused the government of failing to provide security to Tariq.
“It is simply the government’s failure and someone should stand up and take the responsibility,” MMA’s parliamentary leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmed told AFP.
Hussain said Hayat should resign for failing to control the violence that erupted after funeral prayers yesterday.
The Pakistan People’s Party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said top government officials should step down from their posts, which they have used to “witch hunt” opponents and not lead the country.
“The government is spending all its time witch-hunting opponents. We believe that government of Gen. Musharraf is responsible for this failure and it must step down,” PPP Sen. Farhatullah Babar said.
Local cleric Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi told reporters that Tariq’s murder was a government conspiracy to dent Islamic unity.
“We have all fears that government is involved in this act,” he told a press conference in front of Islamabad’s Red Mosque.
Azam Tariq, revered by legions of Sunni followers, had almost as many enemies.
He led a violent militant group blamed for a spate of killings of minority Shiites, and was himself charged with 103 cases of ordering the murders of rival Shiites. But he was never convicted.
Tariq’s organization, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) espoused radical anti-Shariah views and was banned by President Musharraf in January 2002 in a crackdown on Islamic extremist groups.
He was despised by Shiites for his radical interpretations of Shariah law, which he campaigned to have imposed across Pakistan.
On Aug. 26 he introduced a bill in the national Parliament for nationwide adoption of Shariah. Tariq often publicly showed his sympathy for Afghanistan’s former hard-line Islamic Taleban regime.
He was locked up in October 2001 as US-led forces rained bombs on Taleban-ruled Afghanistan. Pakistani authorities feared he would lead violent rallies against the attacks on the Taleban, also Sunnis.
When Musharraf held a national election 12 months later, Tariq campaigned from behind bars.
Despite his incarceration the 42-year-old Sunni leader was elected to the federal Parliament as an independent for the central Punjab district of Jhang.
He was released on bail within three weeks, and subsequently gave his parliamentary vote to the ruling pro-Musharraf political party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q).
The alliance was considered somewhat unholy, given Musharraf’s repeated vow to stamp out Islamic extremism.
The 42-year-old bearded cleric took command of SSP after its former leader was killed in a massive bomb blast in 1997, instilling more intensive anti-Shiite fervor among its estimated 200,000 followers.
Some 5,000 SSP followers had trained in militant camps in Afghanistan during the Taleban’s regime and fought alongside the militia, according to intelligence estimates.
