Chief of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) Maliq Ishaq along with 13 militants were killed in Muzaffargarh on Wednesday during a shootout after gunmen attacked a police convoy and freed him as he was being moved, police said.The LeJ, which was founded in 1996, is believed to be behind multiple sectarian attacks in the country. Ishaq himself was implicated in dozens of cases of murder and was thought to be the mastermind behind key terrorist attacks that have taken place in recent years including the 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore. The details of Malik Ishaq’s death are somewhat unclear.According to initial information, LeJ chief Malik Ishaq along with his two sons were being taken by counter terrorism department (CTD) officials to a town of Muzaffargarh where they had seized an arms cache to identify men they had detained on suspicion of being members of Ishaq’s group. The purpose of taking them to southern Punjab was to help recover weapons and explosives. According to the police account, as the party with Ishaq and his sons was returning, it was attacked by about 15 gunmen who were able to kill Ishaq and his sons. A police party then challenged the militants, resulting in a shoot-out. Fourteen militants were among those killed in the incident.Malik Ishaq was one of the founding members of Lashker-i-Jhangvi, and under his command the organisation gained an ominous reputation for carrying out attacks against the Shia community. Its legacy can still be seen in the on-going violence in Karachi and Quetta. He was implicated in several dozen cases of murder, and had been in and out of police custody since 1997. Yet his fearsome persona, strategic murders of witnesses and their families, and blatant intimidation of judges, let him be repeatedly released for “lack of evidence”. During the later years, he was used by the government in several stand-offs with other militants. In 2009 he was flown to Rawalpindi to negotiate with terrorists who had stormed military facilities, and was used – behind the scenes, and begrudgingly – to keep several other groups manageable. Yet this encounter suggests that perhaps Malik Ishaq himself was ultimately unmanageable.His death may also signal the beginning of a crackdown on sectarian groups – where the NAP implementation has only focused on the tribal belt so far.The death of Malik Ishaq means that all the three men behind the formation of the LeJ, which emerged as a breakaway faction from the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, are now dead. Riaz Basra died in 2002, Akram Lahori was executed early this year. With Malik Ishaq now also killed, the chief figures linked to the sectarian organisation which was banned nearly a decade ago but remained essentially active, are now gone. Whether this will result in a decline in sectarian crime or a weakening of the forces that promote it is difficult to say. The truth is that in our country, for many – notably in certain seminaries run by extremist forces – men like Ishaq are heroes. Regardless of what the future may hold, the death of Malik Ishaq and Ghulam Rasul Shah, another Lashker-i-Jhangvi senior caught in the crossfire, closes a chapter in Pakistan history.
pk.shafaqna.com
