Pakistan’s military tightens grip on Islamist groups as blasphemy cases plunge

Munir’s family background feeds into this shift as well. He is the son of an imam and considers himself a devout, conservative Muslim, and religious identity remains deeply woven into Pakistan’s state institutions. Even so, he has pushed the country toward international engagement through cryptocurrency partnerships, foreign investment deals, a mediating role in the conflict between the United States and Iran, and a mutual defence pact with Saudi Arabia.

Data shared with a foreign news agency by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a group that tracks conflict incidents worldwide, shows the scale of the shift. Pakistan averaged more than seven blasphemy related riots or attacks annually between 2021 and 2024, but recorded only one such incident over the past twelve months.

Economic pressure appears to have played a significant role in prompting the crackdown. Two Pakistani government sources said officials grew alarmed during the summer of 2025 that rising hostility from fundamentalist groups toward France and other European countries threatened to jeopardize a European Union duty waiver covering Pakistani exports. Nearly a third of Pakistan’s total exports go to the EU, and losing that preferential access could have dealt a severe blow to the national economy. Neither the European Commission nor Pakistan’s commerce ministry responded to requests for comment on the matter.

Washington has added its own pressure over religious freedom concerns. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a government watchdog, recommended last year that Pakistan be placed back on a list of countries of particular concern due to its blasphemy laws, a designation Islamabad has firmly rejected.

Analyst Abdul Basit of Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies said worsening insurgent violence in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan’s two most mineral rich provinces, likely added urgency to Munir’s campaign, particularly since he has pitched foreign investment in the country’s mining sector to American officials over the past year. Basit noted that religious groups have lost favor within the state’s priorities, though he cautioned that the militias driving these regional insurgencies are not formally tied to the newly banned Islamist organizations, even if both draw recruits from the same pool of young, radicalized men. Elizabeth Threlkeld, who directs the Stimson Center’s South Asia program, said the open question going forward is whether Pakistan can sustain this level of focus over time.

Crackdown targets country’s largest fundamentalist movement

The largest of the groups swept up in the crackdown, Tehreek e Labbaik Pakistan, built its identity around the slogan “Death to blasphemers” before authorities banned it late last year. Many of its leaders now sit in jail, its mosques have been sealed shut and its financial accounts frozen. A previously undisclosed government document that laid the groundwork for the ban argued the organization had become a serious threat to Pakistan by damaging both domestic stability and the country’s standing internationally. A spokesperson for the group pointed to a statement it issued last year describing the ban as illegal and unconstitutional.

The move against Tehreek e Labbaik follows earlier crackdowns on groups such as Lashkar e Taiba and Jaish e Muhammad, which Pakistan pursued under pressure from the Financial Action Task Force, the international body that monitors terrorism financing. Basit linked the newest crackdown to a period of internal reflection within Pakistan over its historical backing of the Afghan Taliban, whom Islamabad now blames for stoking Islamist insurgencies against the Pakistani state from across the border. The Taliban government in Kabul has dismissed that accusation as baseless, and a spokesperson for its foreign ministry declined to comment further, describing Pakistan’s crackdown as an internal matter.

For Pakistan’s Christian, Shia and Ahmadi communities, the change in atmosphere has been dramatic. In the past, suspects in blasphemy related killings, including police officers, were sometimes greeted with rose petals or celebratory receptions, and individuals accused of burning churches or minority mosques often received public praise. Blasphemy remains a capital offense under Pakistani law, and even a rumor of an accusation has historically been enough to spark riots or lynchings. Human rights organizations say victims’ families have rarely obtained justice, since judges and lawyers have often been too frightened to take on such cases. Officer Malik said everyone who confronted the crowd during last month’s incident in Karachi felt genuine fear. The Christian family targeted that day was eventually moved to safety, and an initial investigation has since found the accusations against them to be false.

Group’s military links trace back a decade

Tehreek e Labbaik formed in 2015 while its founder was imprisoned for shooting and killing a Pakistani provincial governor in 2011 over his support for a Christian woman accused of blasphemy. That gunman, a former police bodyguard, was later convicted and executed months after the group’s founding. Analysts have long suspected the group’s creation received at least tacit support from Pakistan’s military establishment, including its intelligence services, as a tool to keep civilian governments and mainstream political parties in check. Following violent riots led by the group in 2017, then army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa referred to its protesters as the country’s own people. Pakistan’s Supreme Court later ordered the military and intelligence agencies to stay out of politics but stopped short of directly tying them to the organization.

Analysts and former officials say the effects of years of tolerance for the group will not disappear simply because of a ban, and that the shock felt by its supporters could still trigger backlash. Ihsan Ghani, who served as Pakistan’s counter terrorism chief during the 2017 riots, said he worries the group could resurface at full strength if its usefulness to the state changes again. He compared decades of state backed nurturing of the movement to something that cannot simply be switched on and off at will.

Within Pakistan’s minority communities, the sudden shift still feels fragile. One of the Christian women rescued during last month’s incident in Karachi said she and her family are now physically safe, but admitted the fear has not fully faded.