Mullah Abdul Aziz delivered his sermon to the Friday congregation by telephone yesterday.
“How can a person who has warrant of arrest against him use the microphone of the Lal Masjid which is run by the government,” asked The Quaid-e-Jawaan, Jibran Nasir, the moving spirit behind the civil society campaign against the mullah who tried to flee the govt’s security forces dressed as a woman when the terror network in Laal Masjid was smashed.
“We are considering filing a petition in the Islamabad High Court to stop him from using the microphone of the mosque,” Nasir told the media.
Indeed, his telephoned Friday sermon strengthened the rumours, circulating since he disappeared from the mosque over a week ago, that the administration has confined him to his house.
Civil society activist Shan Taseer said that the police did not respond to their request to replace the police investigation officer with a Grade-18 officer. “So we have no option but to go to court,” he said.
“If the police arrest Maulana Aziz before February 16, we will say ‘thank you’, otherwise a protest will be held against the police,” he said.
Mullah ABdul Aziz openly tried to justify the December 16 massacre of Peshawar schoolchildren as a “reaction” to the military operations against the terrorists who were wrecking havoc in society.
Civil society protested the remark outside the Lal Masjid for two days and the confrontation led to the registration of an FIR with the police against the Mullah’s threats to the protesters.
As the civil movement persisted, a court issued a warrant for arrest for Maulana Aziz who, however, said he would neither seek bail before arrest nor offer himself for arrest.
However he has not been arrested as yet.
