Getting rid of its pro-Taliban and pro-sectarian image will be a formidable challenge for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), as its leader Nawaz Sharif braces to become the 18th prime minister of Pakistan.

The party’s victory has been accepted by the international community, but with apprehension – will it be able to fight terrorism and root out extremism in the next five years? The apprehensions are not unfounded.

The PML-N gave a National Assembly ticket to Chaudhry Abid Raza Gujjar from Gujrat’s NA-107 constituency. Gujjar is an alleged leader of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ, which is also known as Sipah Sahaba Pakistan SSP or Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat Deobandi ASWJ). Abid Gujjar of PMLN-LeJ was given a death sentence by an anti-terrorism court, and spent five years in jail. The punishment was set aside by the Lahore High Court when the aggrieved party accepted diyat (blood money). Gujjar was released in 2003, but arrested or questioned several times, on charges including failed assassination attempts on former president Pervez Musharraf. He was also suspected of sheltering the notorious AlQaeda-LeJ militant Amjad Faruqi, who tried to eliminate Musharraf.

Gujjar’s nomination papers were rejected initially, but the Lahore High Court allowed him to contest the election. He secured 94,196 votes, beating Chaudhry Mohammad Ilyas of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI, led by Imran Khan), who secured 61,083 votes. Gujjar is now a legislator.

Sardar Ebaad Dogar is another such case. He is accused of having close links with the defunct Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan. The PML-N awarded him a National Assembly ticket from the NA-178 constituency in Muzaffargarh. Dogar had announced a Rs 20 million bounty on the slain Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer. Taseer was killed days after that. Dogar was arrested and released by police after he told his interrogators that the bounty offer was only a gesture of love for the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). He lost the election on May 11 to former PPP-leader Jamshed Dasti, but managed to bag 63,228 votes against Dasti’s 79,417.

Dasti’s nomination papers had been rejected and he was sentenced for three years for forging a university degree, but the punishment and the ban were set aside by the Lahore High Court. Dasti joined the PML-N after winning the election.

Lahore High Court and other benches of Pakistani judiciary are usually known to be sympathetic to Taliban and PML-N.

The PML-N also gave tickets to two alleged patrons of the SSP – Maulana Ilyas Chinioti who ran from Chiniot’s PP-73 constituency for the Punjab Assembly, and Maulana Hafiz Abdul Kareem who ran from Dera Ghazi Khan’s NA-172 constituency of the National Assembly. Chinioti defeated PTI’s Hasan Ali Qazi, and Kareem defeated independent candidate Jamal Leghari.

A likely seat adjustment deal between the ASWJ and the PML-N broke down after Sheikh Waqas Akram joined
Chinioti had severely criticized Nawaz Sharif when he called the minority Ahmadiyya Community “our brothers”, to express sympathy after a gun and grenade attack that killed about 100 Ahmadis. A source said Hafiz Abdul Kareem had friends in Saudi Arabia, on whose pressure the PML-N gave him a ticket.

The party has also had ties with Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) – new name of the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) (aka Lashkar-e-Jhangvi LeJ). Shahbaz Sharif became the chief minister of Punjab after winning unopposed from the PP-48 constituency in Bhakkar, after the ASWJ withdrew its candidate Maulana Abdul Hameed Khalid. PML-N leader and former Punjab home minister Rana Sanaullah won the by-election in the PP-82 constituency in Jhang in 2010, with Ludhianvi’s support. The two were photographed together in a vehicle while running the campaign.

Sources in the party said talks for a seat adjustment deal between the ASWJ and the PML-N before this year’s elections broke down after Sheikh Waqas Akram – a rival of Maulana Ahmed Ludhianvi – joined the PML-N. The ASWJ then vowed to oppose the PML-N. The group (ASWJ-LeJ) contested the elections using the platform of the Deobandi-Wahhabi religious alliance Muttahida Deeni Mahaz, led by pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Sami-ul-Haq Deobandi.

The PML-N had offered to make Ahmed Ludhianvi Deobandi the religious affairs minister in exchange for ASWJ’s support to PML-N candidate from NA-48 (Islamabad) Anjum Aqeel Khan, according to a source. Both Anjum Aqeel Khan and Ahmed Ludhainvi lost the elections.

As a matter of policy, PML-N president Nawaz Sharif is in favor of talks with the Taliban. Along with Maulana Fazlur-Rehman Deobandi of JUI=F and Munawar Hasan of JI, Nawz Sharif is among the three guarantors the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had named when it offered to talk to the state of Pakistan. There are numerou armed groups operating in the tribal areas, including Pakistani Sipah-e-Sahaba, Uzbek Takfiris and Al Qaeda-linked Arabs. All of these groups pay homage to Osama bin Laden Wahhabi of Al Qaeda, Mullah Omar Deobandi of Taliban and Ahmed Ludhianvi Deobandi of ASWJ-LeJ.

The TTP has said in several statements that democracy and the Pakistani constitution are against Islam, and that Pakistan must impose its version of the Sharia law and end all ties with the US. The state may not be able to make a compromise on any of these points.

Source: Adapted from TFT

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