Lal Masjid operation: Case against Musharraf filed
The court earlier entertained a contempt plea over not filing of case against Musharraf.
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) - A case has been registered in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) against former president Pervez Musharraf for the murder of Abdul Rashid and his mother during the Lal Masjid operation.
Earlier, the IHC stopped Station House Officer (SHO) Aabpara Police Station, Qasim Niazi from leaving the courtroom, saying that he would not be allowed to leave until a case was registered against Musharraf.
Now that the case has been registered, he has left the courtroom.
IHC Justice Noorul Haq Qureshi said that not registering a case despite the court’s orders falls under contempt of court.
On Friday the IHC summoned the SHO over non-compliance with the court’s orders to look into whether a case can be registered. The IHC Justice directed the SHO to appear before the court on September 2 in response to a contempt application filed by Haroonur Rashid Ghazi — the son of slain Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rasheed Ghazi — against the police for non-compliance with court orders and sought criminal proceedings against the police official.
On July 12, 2013, the same bench had ordered the police to book the former president, and if the Lal Masjid operation was a cognisable offence, a case be registered against Musharraf for the death of Ghazi and others during the operation.
However, the police had refused to register an FIR, saying that it would do so after consulting their legal branch.
Tariq Asad, the counsel for the petitioner, had said that they approached the concerned police station after the court’s decision but both the SHO and SSP refused to register the case. Earlier, Haroon had filed a written statement with the Aabpara police in which he said the former president had made threatening statements on two occasions before the military operation on the mosque was launched in July 2007.
Background
On July 3, 2007, Musharraf had ordered a military operation against the mosque for challenging the writ of the state.
The military besieged the mosque for 12 days before assaulting the compound, an attack in which hundreds of students were killed.
The former chief cleric of Lal Masjid Aziz was accused of using the mosque loudspeaker to instigate madrassa students to attack the Rangers who were deployed outside the mosque in order to prevent Aziz and his associates at Lal Masjid from continuing their campaign of public intimidation that they had been carrying out since January of that year.
The charges against Aziz also include kidnapping and abduction of Chinese massage therapists as well as hijacking a children’s library in June 2007 as part of his institution’s protest against the demolition of seven mosques in the federal capital.
Last year, an anti-terrorism court acquitted Aziz, and 16 other persons in a case on the killing of a Rangers official.
