Martyr’s shrine boosts extremism

PAKISTAN: RADICALS GLORIFY ISLAMIST MURDERER

Government vows to fight scourge after fresh wave of attacks leaves 130 dead.

Bara Kahu

Pakistan has renewed its vow to root out extremism after a fresh wave of attacks, but a rose-covered shrine in Islamabad built by radicals to glorify an Islamist murderer sends a different message.

Followers of Mumtaz Qadri were set to fete him as a hero at his tomb yesterday, the start of a three-day festival marking the anniversary of his hanging on February 29 last year.

Qadri assassinated liberal Punjab governor Salman Taseer in 2011, angered by the politician’s reformist stance on Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws. The state’s decision to execute him provoked an uproar among Islamists.

“There could be 400 000 people,” Qadri’s father Malik Bashir Awan told AFP as he supervised preparations for the commemoration at the shrine.

Authorities appear unwilling to oppose it.

And while the government showed unexpected determination by executing Qadri, his family say it did not prevent them from sanctifying him with the white marble tomb, adorned with four tapered minarets.

Each day dozens visit the shrine, built on a family plot bordering Islamabad, to seek divine intervention and leave flowers.

The gestures glorifying the fundamentalist are a perverse echo of popular South Asian traditions venerating mystical, tolerant Sufi saints, many of whom helped spread Islam through the subcontinent.

Qadri’s family do not intend to stop there. His father hopes to build a madrassa (religious school) on the site. Donations from supporters are pouring in.

The shrine is a glaring demonstration of how, despite military success in fighting insurgents, Pakistan has made little progress in tackling the underlying causes of extremism.

A military-led crackdown supported by the government’s vaunted national action plan led to a dramatic improvement in security in the country since 2014.

But critics have long argued the initiatives do not go far enough.

A wave of apparently coordinated attacks over the past fortnight killed 130 people and shredded the growing sense of optimism. Analysts say there are “visible signs” militants are regrouping.

Arif Jamal, an expert on radical Islamism, said the presence of the shrine helps to bolster beliefs that contribute to extremism. –