After many days of a protest march from Lahore to Islamabad punctuated with violence, Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan has reached an agreement with the PTI-led federal government that remains hidden from view. The government has lifted the ban on the TLP and allowed it to join the national mainstream.
TLP has been a headache for the government for many years and the religious party was banned in April this year due to repeated violent protests. In recent process, at least five policemen lost their lives as they resisted the protesters who were bent upon marching on the federal capital plunging Punjab into administrative chaos.
Prior to the agreement, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry had said that TLP was pursuing an external agenda and had also presented evidence of Indian funding, while Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid had said that there would be no concessions with the TLP. However, instead of restoring the state’s writ, the government secretly entered into an agreement with the group, raising a number of questions.
It is inexplicable why the government would want to keep the agreement secret. Every time the TLP has undertaken such a protest march, it has tortured and killed policemen without being held accountable for these crimes. This time too it appears that it will get away with such crimes.
The progress so far gives the impression that TLP has brought the PTI government to its knees. The government’s mishandling of the crisis has once again brought into sharp focus the wide gap between what this government says and what it ends up doing at the end.
The results of the example, set by the government by revoking the ban on TLP, are starting to appear and now the government has lost the legitimacy to ban other organizations. This incident has set a negative precedent as other banned organizations can now use force to enforce their demands.
Therefore, it is imperative that the government make public the agreement it has inked with the TLP and then justifies it. The nation has a right to know what has been bartered away in return for the violent crowd to disperse.
