Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) Ameer Saad Rizvi has spoken out against the demolition of Madina Masjid in Karachi, days after two other leading religious parties criticised the Supreme Court (SC) for ordering that the illegally constructed mosque be razed down.
The SC on Tuesday turned down a plea by the attorney general to withdraw its December 28 orders calling for the demolition of the mosque.
The government has feared that religious tension would spring up as the issue appeared as a test case between the state and the country’s powerful religious hierarchy.
In a statement issued on Friday, the TLP leader went on to link the demolition of Madina Masjid to India’s Babri Masjid incident.
“If the order [of the apex court] is implemented then what will be the fault of those who demolished Babri Masjid,” held Rizvi, whose party was on the list of proscribed organizations for months after the government decided to lift the ban on it under a ‘secret deal’ signed between the two sides in November 2021.
Following the deal, Saad, the son of the late TLP leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi was also released from Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail after months of detention under the Maintenance of Public Ordinance (MPO) 1960.
Leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) visited and greeted Saad after release, who went on and made countrywide tours to organize TLP.
Saad’s comments about Madina Masjid controversy came after the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Ameer Sirajul Haq appealed the top court to take back its December 28 order.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) Secretary General Abdul Ghafoor Haidri visited Karachi on Jan 3 to “show solidarity with the mosque administration and Muslims of the city” and made derogatory remarks against the SC judges for issuing the demolition order of a mosque in an Islamic country.
Haidri said they would sacrifice their lives to resist the demolition.
Saad said he regretted the apex court order, questioning how a Muslim could bear the demolition of a mosque. He said his party would never allow the removal of Madina Masjid.
During the apex court proceeding on Tuesday, the court was informed that the mosque had been built on land measuring around 1,100 square yards shown as a park in the Pakistan Employees Cooperative Housing Society (PECHS) on main Tariq Road.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, who headed the three-member bench at the hearing, said that the Sindh government could allocate an alternative place for the mosque, insisting that “we had ourselves seen a park on that land”.
Meanwhile, Justice Qazi Amin Ahmed, who was a part of the bench, observed that religion was being used in land grabbing.
