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#Pakistan’s Dark History of Student Extremists

By Shah Meer Baloch and Zafar Musyani

Since the 1970s, political factions in Pakistan have armed students and encouraged them to violence.

On October 24, the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) and the Higher Education Commission (HEC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for prevention and awareness of “on-campus” extremism and terrorism.

This MoU did not come out of the blue. Many unaccountable incidents of intolerance and extremism at Pakistan’s university campuses pushed concerned authorities to take at least theoretical steps.

Perhaps most infamously, on April 13, 2017, 23-year-old student Mashal Khan was stripped, beaten and shot by a mob of students. All of the students were Khan’s university fellows at Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan city, northwestern Pakistan. The mob consisted of various student organizations: religious, ethnic, and even supposedly left-leaning. Khan’s “crime”? Posting blasphemous content online, a charge later revealed to be false.

Violence, intolerance, and extremism at university campuses are not a new phenomenon in Pakistan. This trend has a history of decades, but it has become unbearable now. This violent behavior in students was inculcated at the University of Karachi (UoK), Pakistan, through conscious planning by conservative religious leaders.

There was a time when cricket bats and hockey sticks were used in sports, but then they began to be utilized by students at the University of Karachi to beat their rival student factions. There was a group of strong men, particularly selected for unleashing violence; the group was called the “Thunder Squad.” Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) formed the Thunder Squad in the early 1970s to thrash opposing student factions and to show their power by violence.

The IJT is a student wing of the religious-cum-political party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Pakistan. The socially conservative party was formed in 1941, even before the inception of Pakistan. Its main objective is to make Pakistan an Islamic welfare state governed by sharia law.

The Thunder Squad was a symbol of the fear and violence at the University of Karachi. As Nadeem F. Paracha wrote for Dawn in 2012, “The militant faction [of the IFT] was called the Thunder Squad and it reappeared on campuses with the mission to ‘cleanse educational institutions of immoral activities.’”

Thunder Squad personnel often used strong-arm tactics and regularly clashed with members of left-leaning student wings such as the National Students Federation (NSF) and Democratic Students Federation (DSF).

Fear lingered on in students initially. But with the passage of time, other student organizations also got access to weapons. Many major political parties backed their student wings; guns had replaced hockey sticks and bats.

After the disintegration of Pakistan and the emergence of Bangladesh on the world’s map, when Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto came into the power in early 1970s, he established and supported the Peoples Students Federation (PSF), student faction of his Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

With guns now present at the university dorms, armed conflict began among various student factions. It spread like a wildfire and engulfed lives. In 1981, Hafiz Aslam of the IJT was killed; this marked the beginning of Kalashnikov culture at the campuses.

“The last armed conflict was witnessed in 1989 at the University of Karachi,” said Dr. Moonis Ahmer, meritorious professor of international relations at the UoK. That clash was between the All Pakistan Muhajir Students Organization (APMSO) and the PSF.

Ahmer added, “Since then, we have the deployment of Rangers, a paramilitary force, at the University. They came here for [what was supposed to be] a short span of time but it has almost been three decades now. They are not supposed to be here but on the borders of the country. Due to the students’ violence and negative politics the force is stationed here.”

The Downfall of Student Unions and the Rise of Intolerance and Extremism

Pakistani student groups were not always hotbeds of violence. Prior to the 1980s, the culture was different, thanks to existence of student unions.

Student unions were the amalgamation of many student organizations. They had different ideological and political backgrounds but worked under one platform. They worked for the educational and political uplift of students, functioning as a bridge between students and university administration.

Student organizations would take part in the elections to form the union, allowing voters to decide who received a mandate. During elections for the union, every candidate had to come up with a practicable manifesto to attract educated voters. Unlike today, there was an atmosphere of debate, competition, training, and reading.

This environment of progressive activities ended when the then-military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq banned the student unions in 1984. It all happened because his brutal regime faced resistance at the hands of progressive and left-leaning political parties. In that struggle against the undemocratic regime of General Zia, student unions played a gigantic role.

The ban on student unions was a de facto ban on student politics.

“At that time, generally politics, particularly student politics, was ideological and progressive-oriented,” said Zahid Hussain, a renowned journalist and author, who in the early 1970s was the secretary general of the NSF. “Zia banned the student unions and patronized the IJT in order to counter the progressive and liberal forces.”

By banning unions, Zia not only imprisoned students but also sowed the seeds of extremism and intolerance.

“They banned student unions on the pretext of checking violence but violence took birth and permeated after the banning of the unions,” said Senator Mir Hasil Bizenjo, the former president of the National Party who, in the 1980s as a student leader, brought together disparate left-wing, ethnonationalist, and liberal political groups against the IJT.

“The student unions were a complete training academy. They trained students educationally, politically and professionally. Unions were like a nursery. From the unions the country got politicians, trade unionists, academicians, and journalists; when Zia wiped out that nursery, it made Pakistan infertile,” Bizenjo added.

The banning of the student unions was connected with other events in the region. At the time, American-supported jihad (holy war) in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union was in full swing. And Pakistan was the frontline state for the United States in fighting the communist Red Army.

Meanwhile, Zia was undertaking the Islamization of Pakistan’s social, educational, and political fabric. In this process, everything from laws to educational curriculum to literature was Islamized. At the behest of the United States, he supported jihadist ideology by hook or crook.

Back to the Present

Today, many universities in Pakistan have become breeding grounds for fundamentalism, extremism, linguistic hatred, and violence.

The stories are all-too common: Students falling prey to terrorist organizations; ethnic student organizations having a deadly clash; students murdering one another; students lynching others for violating any social or religious norm in Pakistan.

But there are many more danger signs that don’t make the headlines. For example, as we walked up the steps in front of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Arts at the University of Karachi for meetings with students and academicians, we had to step on the flags of Israel, the United States, and India.

The seeds of extremism were sown in the 197os, but Pakistan started reaping them after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The violence was romanticized by terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

“Our youth got attracted with this romanticism,” Hussain told The Diplomat.

It’s not only illiterate youth who are attracted by radicalized organizations; educated Pakistani youth have also joined them. Saad Aziz, a graduate from the Institute of Business Administration IBA, one of Pakistan’s top-notch private institutes in Karachi, was arrested for the gruesome shooting of a bus full of Ismaili passengers.

“Students are being used by terrorist outfits in Pakistan. It is not mainly due to the banning of student politics, but the state’s patronization of extremism,” said Khan. “Yes, the state has been patronizing violence and extremism. It can correct its previous mistakes, if it wants.”

A former student at UoK believes local educators also bear part of the blame. “First, the state role is very important, and can’t be ruled out from this. Second, the university administration is either directly or indirectly part of this student extremism,” Jaffer F. Mirza, previously the head of a religious student organization at the University of Karachi, told The Diplomat. “Third, teachers have a huge role in this regard. Like I remember a teacher from our department would change the minds of students from critical thinking to performing Namaz(Islamic daily prayer).”

Many students and politicians we met argue that if the state does not patronize and support extremist ideology, then it should restore student unions immediately.

“We demand the immediate restoration of student unions in Pakistan,” said Bizenjo. “If authorities in power want to bring back the glorious and tolerant days of 1970s, then it should revive student unions.”

The IJT Today

After the passage of decades, the IJT is still too powerful to be countered by any other student group. Most of the time, other groups blame the IJT for the violence that occurs at campuses.

However, Abdul Ahad Talha, who heads the IJT at the UoK, denies such allegations.

He told The Diplomat, “The main objective of the IJT is to have an Islamic welfare state like that of Medina and shape the students’ lives according to the teachings of Islam.”

Talha added, “There should be separate education institutes for girls and boys. Otherwise, they must follow the Islamic teachings.”

Many students believe there is no room for dialogue and debate over certain topics — for instance atheism, secularism, and religion — without resorting to violence. But Talha says that he supports dialogues on any topic or issue.

But progressive students, who are in numbers and divided, do not agree with Talha on this point. “You never know when they will label you as a blasphemer,” Lamha Kausar, a student of sociology at the UoK, said. “So I am afraid of asking questions or taking part in any debates related to atheism, secularism, and evolution, because I don’t want to be lynched.

“In today’s Pakistan, the concept of right and left has evaporated,” said Khan.

Pakistan has produced lynching mobs for a couple of decades. But it is not alone in polarization breeding intolerance and even violence. While pointing at increasing extremism in India, renowned Pakistani novelist Mohammed Hanif wrote in the New York Times, “India [is] becoming Pakistan’s murderous other.”

Hanif is partially right. Extremism may be on the rise in India, but unlike Pakistan, India has progressive student forces, and student activists like Kanhaiya Kumar, the former president of student union at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, (JNU). Kumar famously challenged the most powerful man in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and questioned the atrocities of his government.

“Kumar has criticized Modi for his extremist ideology. He also has highlighted the atrocities of Indian army in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Wajid Baloch, a journalist and a former student of the UoK. “Pakistan has [Islamist political party] Tehreek-e-Labbaik, rulers like Imran Khan, and a mighty military establishment but without a progressive students force. If there are [Hindu nationalist group] RSS and Modi in India, there are also students such as Kumar, Shehla Rashid, and Jignesh Mivani to confront and question the halls of power.

“I doubt it Kumar would be alive if he were in Pakistan.”

#Pakistan - Bilawal Bhutto slams Imran Khan govt’s ‘inaction’ on SP’s killing

SONIYA AGRAWAL and AASTHA SINGH

Opposition leader Bilawal Bhutto, the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), has criticised the Imran Khan government over its handling of the investigation into the abduction and murder of superintendent of police Tahir Dawar in Afghanistan, reports The Nation.

Dawar, who was abducted from outside his Islamabad home on 26 October, was found dead in Afghanistan on 13 November.

“It is shocking that one of our top police officials was kidnapped from Islamabad and shifted to Afghanistan without being noticed,” he said, “The way this government has dealt with the entire matter is unconvincing and a lot remains to be answered.”

Bilawal demanded that the government raise the murder with Afghanistan’s authorities instead of blaming “the safe-city project and CCTV cameras”. He was referring to reports that the National Accountability Bureau will investigate claims about 600 of the 1,800 CCTV camerasinstalled in Islamabad for residents’ safety were not functional.

“The government should find out exactly why Dawar’s kidnapping was not made a top priority issue,” Bilawal added.

#Pakistan - Alarming increase in neonatal, maternal mortality rates in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has moved an application in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, seeking a suo moto notice of the deaths of 22 newborn babies and one pregnant woman in hospitals of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa every day.

The application has been moved by PMA president Dr Hussain Ahmad Haroon. He has requested the Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Mian Saqib Nisar to take a suo moto notice of the serious issue.

In the two-page application, the PMA president discussed and explained the present condition of the KP hospitals after introduction of the Medical Teachings Institutions Act by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led government in the province.

However, he explained in the application that as per media reports based on government released data of the Basic Health Units, Regional Health Centres and District Headquarters Hospitals, 22 newborn babies and one pregnant woman die every day.

However, he stated that this data is without the 10 teaching hospitals of the province and thousands maternity homes, and if right data is collected, the number would go much higher.

As per the report submitted with the application, it was stated that 3,979 newborn babies from the first day up to one month time had died in the first 180 days of 2018. Besides, it said 178 pregnant women had also died in the hospitals during this period.

The data is provided by the District Health Information System and collected from Rural Health Centers and labour rooms of tehsil and district government hospitals of the province.

As per the report, 2259 children who died were suckling babies, not more than one month of age, and 1720 babies died immediately after the death.

It said that 560 babies died in Bannu hospitals, 506 in Haripur, 226 in Swat and 110 in Kohat.

Similarly, it said 178 pregnant women had died in the hospitals, including 31 in Nowshera, 15 in Abbottabad, 20 in Mansehra and 21in Dera Ismail Khan hospitals.

The PMA president also pointed out before the Chief Justice of Pakistan that there is no ICU Ventilator in District Headquarters Hospitals of the province and many patients died during operations due to non-availability of ICU Ventilators.

Besides, he stated in the application that the ICU Ventilators were also not available in the private hospitals of the province except a few.

However, he pointed out that legally no surgery can be conducted in a hospital where there is no ventilator facility.

It was stated in the application that the present PTI government through MTI law had given a status of private hospitals to majority hospitals of the province and are being through Board of Governors (BoG).

The applicant said that first their members were selected from government departments in BoG, and now no member is being elected from government departments including health department.

It was also stated that the condition of government hospitals is worsening day by day.

He said that people are dying in hospitals and the government did not take measures in this regard.

The PMA president said that death ratio of newborn babies in KP is more than Thar area of Sindh and requested the CJP to take suo moto notice of these deaths.

Why is there no room for Asia Bibi in Britain’s Intersectional Inn?

Asia Bibi, identifiably the world’s most oppressed woman, has been disqualified from the International Olympics of Oppression 2018. A month before Theresa May, Britain’s Christian PM celebrates Christmas, her government is replaying the Nativity by slamming the door of Britain’s Intersectional Inn in the face of a woman who is arguably the most deserving refugee on the planet. Intersectionality is the nomenclature for Leftism’s taxonomy of oppression. It refers to how different forms of discrimination (like racism or sexism) overlap.

 So, according to Kimberle Crenshaw, who coined the term “intersectionality”, black women have a higher status on the hierarchy of victimhood because they are black and women and these two experiences of marginalization intersect and their “intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism”. Your value as a human being depends on how many victim groups you belong to. Consequently, a one-eyed, black, lesbian, Palestinian, Muslim woman gets the Olympic gold medal, while, a heterosexual, black, woman, is awarded silver, and a white, homosexual, American male is at the bottom with a bronze medal. The religion of identity politics not only has a hierarchical creed; it also has a great commandment—love your neighbour based on their position on the totem pole of intersectionality.

Thus, a female bishop in the male-dominated Church of England must make alliances with other oppressed folk—Muslims, Palestinians, Native Americans, and every noodle in the LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP alphabet soup, depending on the degree of overlapping categories of oppression. Your value as a human being depends on how many victim groups you belong to. This is the one, unholy, apostate and cultic faith that unites Theresa May’s government, Leftists and the Church of England (and liberal denominations). Its high priests are innkeepers holding the keys to opening or shutting the doors to Cool Britannia’s Intersectional Inn—where the world’s huddled masses yearning to breathe free and indulge in LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP sexual congress—may be welcomed like Joseph and Mary fleeing the genocidal lunacy of King Herod. It follows that, on merit alone,

Asia Bibi should win the gold in the Oppression Olympics and be accorded a red carpet state welcome by the innkeepers of the Intersectional Inn. Asia Bibi is a coloured (20 points) woman (20 points), who has been brutalised by Pakistan’s patriarchy (25 points). She is a low-class (10 points) and low-caste (20 points) farm labourer (15 points). She has rotted on death row facing the death penalty (30 points) for eight years for a crime she did not commit (15 points). That’s a whopping 155 points on Bibi’s scorecard. A victim can get into the Intersectional Inn with as few as 20 points—being a woman is enough (even better a man who self-identifies as a woman). Taking a leaf from the Jim Acosta School of Journalism, the Messiahs of Migration should be snatching media megaphones and demanding open borders for Asia Bibi and her family. So why has Britain so dishonourably refused Asia Bibi asylum? The Home Office has reportedly told Pakistani Christians campaigning on her behalf that Bibi’s “moving to the UK would cause security concerns and unrest among certain sections of the community and would also be a security threat to British embassies abroad which might be targeted by Islamist terrorists”.

 Islam is a religion of peace, no? Why, then, is our Islamophiliac Home Office so terrified?

 Is it because protestors in Pakistan have already caused damage in the region of £900 million, bringing the country to a standstill? Or is it because a Chamberlain, not a Churchill, heads our government?

Elsewhere, I have written about Theresa May’s cowardly capitulation to Salafist Islam. History will remember Mrs May as an appeaser—the antipodean opposite to Mrs Thatcher. When Fiona Bruce MP asked Mrs May about Pakistan’s Supreme Court verdict overturning Bibi’s death sentence, with adroit subterfuge the PM replied that the UK was committed to the global abolition of the death penalty. Note, she did not say we were committed to the abolition of Islam’s reprehensible blasphemy law. Because May, a globalist, favours the European Court of Human Rights, which recently maintained it was a crime to call Muhammad a paedophile. Traitor Theresa is a female Faust who trades what is left of Britain’s Christian soul with the Muslim Mephistopheles in exchange for her political survival.

She’d rather sign Bibi’s death warrant than offer Bibi asylum in Britain’s Intersectional Inn. What then, of the progressive brigade and their first cousins in the Church of England? Do we see women bishops wearing ‘pussy hats’ and demanding justice for Bibi? Do we see hashtags #ArrestMeToo and #JeSuisAsiaBibi trending on Twitter? The hordes funded by Patron Saint of Open Borders St George Soros and caterwauling in support of Honduran migrant caravans are selling Asia Bibi T-shirts on college campuses, no? Islam is a religion of peace, no? Why, then, is our Islamophiliac Home Office so terrified? Why has Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, not flung open his cottage at Lambeth Palace to this Christian refugee? A couple of years ago Welby persuaded the Home Office to get a Muslim Syrian refugee family into his studio flat, yeah? Welby called the Syrian migrant problem a “wicked crisis”.

We “cannot turn our backs on this crisis”, Archie thundered. “Jesus was a refugee!” bellowed Welby. Cat got your tongue now, Archbishop? Disgracefully, in 2016, the Home Office gave visas to Muslim clerics Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman and Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman who began their tour by visiting Welby at Lambeth Palace for “interfaith relations”. In Pakistan, the duo is infamous for promoting Mumtaz Qadri, the murderer of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer. Taseer wanted to end Pakistan’s blasphemy law. He specifically opposed Asia Bibi’s execution. Perhaps Judas Iscariot could take correspondence courses from you, eh Archbishop? And why have Jayne Ozanne and her chums like Paul Bayes, Bishop of Liverpool, not rushed to Bibi’s advocacy? The Ozanne Foundation works “with religious organisations around the world to eliminate discrimination based on sexuality or gender in order to celebrate the equality and diversity of all”. It’s because Asia Bibi is not a lesbian, no, Jayne?

 Bayes is proud to march for Gay Pride. When it comes being proud of persecuted Christians we haven’t heard a dicky bird from this valiant social justice warrior. The only person proud to be a Christian in this comedy of intersectional errors is Asia Bibi. “I will not convert. I believe in my religion and Jesus Christ. And why should I be the one to convert and not you?” Asia Bibi boldly asks staring her executioners in the face. You dig? Capiche? Now you can understand why the Left doesn’t want Bibi in the Intersectional Inn. Bibi believes in Jesus Christ. She is a conservative Christian. She confesses Jesus as the only way to salvation. For Bibi, Jesus and Muhammad are not interchangeable. For Bibi, Jesus is God’s Son; Muhammad is a mere man. Her exclusive belief in Jesus as her Saviour excludes her from the hierarchy of intersectionality. It automatically excommunicates her latae sententiae from the blessed communion of victim-saints. Why? First, the belief that all religions are basically the same and one religion is no better than another is a cardinal doctrine of progressivism.

Asia Bibi must be blamed for her stubbornness in not converting to the religion of peace! Second, Muslims are at peak of the pyramid in the hierarchy of intersectionality. Not surprisingly, Britain was quick to offer asylum to Malala Yousufzai, the teenage Muslim girl shot by the Taliban. The world now believes the Big Lie that Muslims are the real victims and Christians are the oppressors. Since it was wicked Western missionaries who took the gospel to Pakistanis—Asia Bibi must renounce her Christianity and return to Islam. Third, being a Christian is equivalent to having white privilege. This is a dogma—(all Leftist dogmas must be accepted by faith, not reason, because Leftism is a religion) which stands on feet of clay because, (a) Christianity is originally an Asian religion, and, (b) the truth is that the persecution facing Christians is the largest human rights violation issue in the world today. The only person proud to be a Christian in this comedy of intersectional errors is Asia Bibi. Fourthly, by definition, a biblical Christian betrays the fraternity of victimhood. Unlike Jayne Ozanne, Asia Bibi does not regard herself a victim. She believes she is a victor in Christ because by his death and resurrection Christ has conquered Satan, sin and death. No wonder she’s holding firm to her faith for eight years while languishing in a Pakistani prison where even the guards are waiting to poison her food. Fifthly, the cult of cultural Marxism, which includes progressive Christians, hates orthodox Christianity as much as Lucifer hates God.

 That’s why it has structured its Olympics of Oppression to exclude Christianity by default. Written into its rulebook is the statue: Christianity cannot be a category of oppression. You may be black or brown or blind but coming out of the closet as a confessing Christian disqualifies you by default. It’s like taking steroids to boost your performance in the Olympics. Persecuted Christians, be they black or brown, will never be accepted in Britain’s Intersectional Inn—which stands exposed and denounced by Bibi’s exclusion as one gigantic fraud. The only Western leaders to welcome them are so-called far right, racist, nationalist, white supremacist, anti-immigrant, anti-open border, populists like Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who has offered Asia Bibi asylum in Italy. God bless Matteo Salvini! God bless the populists and may their popularity increase!

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