Shaikhul Islam Dr Tahirul Qadri has made a comeback in Pakistani politics. And when he said he would gather a million people in Lahore for his first speech, people believed him. He has the money and he has the organisation of the same scale that his Ahle Hadith counterpart Hafiz Saeed has.
Certain signs point to his ambition despite his assertion that he and his party will not take part in elections. And he can give up his Canadian citizenship to become the ruler of Pakistan.
He has the backing of the MQM. Since he is a Barelvi and in the crosshairs of the Taliban and al Qaeda, and since the Sunni Tehreek has gone radical and is no longer a Barelvi adjunct of the MQM, Tahirul Qadri (TQ) could be the substitute partner and a gateway to Punjab, his treasury.
On December 25, someone shot at and injured Maulana Aurangzeb Farooqui, a central leader of the Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat, which is the banned Sipah Sahaba under a new inoffensive name taken as it were from the Barelvi nomenclature. The revenge will now likely be taken by the Taliban on the Shia community and the Barelvis.
This raises other dangerous queries.
Does TQ have Irans backing, too? No one knows who the second-rung leaders in Pakistani Awami Tehreek (PAT) are, but an old Iran connection, Agha Murtaza Pooya, is a vice-chairman of PAT. Since Pakistan is killing its Shias, Iran would be beholden if Tahirul Qadri can spread some Sunni-Shia peace around. He makes moving speeches on Eid-e-Ghadir. The Ahle Sunnat Ittehad led by an aggressive Fazal Karim will not gravitate to TQ despite his wealth because of his change of heart on the blasphemy law while in the Christian West.
Imran Khan has carefully decided not to take him on but the fact is he cant get too close because TQ is not well liked by the Taliban. Yet, TQ is more or less like Imran Khan, after staging his comeback at the Minar-e-Pakistan.
The army leadership is humbled by the killing spree of the Taliban. It must hate the killing of the Shia and might favour intimacy with Tehran in opposition to the more realistic stance of the PPP and the PML-N who cant afford to go against the Arab-American strategy in the region.
According to some, first the ISI fielded Imran Khan and has now brought in TQ. More alarmingly, it is fielding the Defence of Pakistan Council, too, to prevent the Pakistani change of mind about India. There are so many balls of confused strategy in the air that the wits of the ISI can be clinically challenged, that is, if it has done this.
Ayaz Amir in The News
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