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| 23 Mar 2010, NewAgeIslam.Com | |
| Munir Commission Report-13: MORE SPEECHES: POLICY RECONSIDERED | |
It is necessary to examine at this stage some cases because these were disposed of together by an order passed at a conference of officers on 24th December 1952. These are the Gulu Shah Fair case [File No. 16 (19) 145], the Lyallpur and Samundri cases [File No. 16 (2) 127], the Rawalpindi case [File No. 16 (2) 129] and the Shujabad case [File No. 16 (2) 130]. There is held every year at village Koreke within the jurisdiction of Police Station Satrah in the district of Sialkot a cattle fair called Gulu Shah Fair. In. 1952, the fair was held from 3rd to 10th October 1952 where a large number of men with their cattle had assembled. The Ahrar embraced this opportunity to call a meeting of All Muslim Parties Convention and to pour out their usual stuff to the people thus assembled. Some of the leaders spoke on 3rd and others on 7th October. The subject of the speeches was of course Ahmadiyyat and since these were calculated to spread sectarian hatred and were prima facie actionable, they were ordered by the Superintendent of Police to be examined by Mr. Abdus Said, Prosecuting Deputy Superintendent of Police. After careful examination of each speech, Mr. Abdus Said gave his opinion as follows: —
(1) That the speech made by Maulvi Karamat Ali on 7th of October 1952, in which he said Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had described the Musalmans as sons of prostitutes and their women as bitches and those who did not believe in him as sons of prostitutes, was actionable under section 21 (3) of the Punjab Public Safety Act as it was likely to further activities prejudicial to the public safety and the maintenance of public order on the part of the Musalmans who are non-Ahmadis.
(2) That the speech of Maulana Bashir Ahmad, Sadr, Majlis-i-Ahrar, Pasrur, made on the same occasion, in which he had referred to an alleged incident in which one Dr. Ehsan Ali had committed rape on Salma Begum, sister of the wife of Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad, and had by an order of Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad been punished with ten strokes of shoes, and in the course of which speech he had asked whether it would be proper if somebody else were punished with ten strokes of shoes for committing rape with a woman of the family of another person, and described the Mirzais as murtadds who were liable to be killed according to shara’ was punishable under clauses (1) and (3) of section 21 of the Punjab Public Safety Act.
(3) That the speech made by Qazi Manzur Ahmad on the same occasion on 3rd October 1952, in which he had reproduced with some distortion certain sayings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, including the saying that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad had conceived from God and that those Musalman men who did not believe in him were swine and those Musalman women who did not accept his claim bitches, and in which the speaker had further alleged that Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din was responsible for the prevailing famine and he was a supporter of Mirzais was actionable under clauses (I), (2) and (3) of section 21 of the Punjab Public Safety Act.
Mr. Abdus Sami, Public Prosecutor, agreed with this opinion. Armed with this legal opinion, the S. P. referred the matter to the District Magistrate, requesting him to obtain the approval of the Provincial Government for prosecution in accordance with the instructions contained in paragraphs 2 and 7 of the decisions taken at the conference of officers held under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary on 5th July 1952. Mr. Ghulam Sarwar Khan, the District Magistrate, forwarded this reference to Government through the Commissioner, by his letter, dated the 18th November 1952. The case was examined by Mr. Nazir Ahmad, S. P. (B), who by his note, dated 18th November 1952, suggested that instead of instituting cases against them, Bashir Ahmad and Manzur Ahmad should be arrested under section 3 of the Punjab Public Safety Act. Mr. Anwar Ali, D.I.G., C.I.D. examined the records of these two individuals and on 22nd November 1952 submitted the case to the Home Secretary expressing the opinion that no opportunity should be lost to prosecute disruptionists who were trying to undermine the stability of the Slate and that if people realised that action would be taken in respect of speeches which offended against the law, greater restraint would be shown. On this the Home Secretary noted on 21st November 1952 that the Chief Minister intended to discuss the whole situation relating to the anti-Ahmadiya agitation with officers on his return from Karachi and that this case could also be discussed in that meeting. He remarked, however, that many another objectionable speech in this connection had come to his notice regarding which it was considered that the best course would be to leave it alone.
At Lyallpur the khatm-i-nubuwwat conference was held under the auspices of the All Muslim Parties Convention on 26th and 27th September 1952 and another public meeting under the same auspices at Samundri on 28th September 1952. Among the speakers at Lyallpur were Mirza Ghulam Nabi Janbaz, Master Taj-ud-Din Ansari, Sahibzada Faiz-ul-Hasan, Sheikh Husam-ud-Din, Taj Muhammad of Lyallpur, Muzaffar Ali Shamsi and Maulana Daud Ghaznavi. In the course of his speech Sahibzada Faiz-ul-Hasan was reported to have remarked that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was a man of cheap morals and deserved to be prosecuted under the Goonda Act for having attacked the modesty of Hazrat Bibi Fatima. He also described Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan as a goonda. He further said that Mr. Muzaffar Ahmad, who was an Ahmadi and a son-in-law of Mirza Mahmud Ahmad could not be appointed as Finance Secretary to Government, Punjab.
Sheikh Husam-ud-Din described Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan as khabis and stated that there were few chances of Pakistan’s betterment so long as he was the Foreign Minister. Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari said something about Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth which had better be left unmentioned. He attributed the air crash near the Lahore Cantonment and the Jangshahi air crash which resulted in the death of Generals Iftikhar Khan and Sher Khan to Mirzais. The speakers at the Samundri conference were Sayyad Muzaffar Ali Shamsi, Master Taj-ud-Din Ansari, Sheikh Husam-ud-Din, Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari, Ghulam Nabi Janbaz and Ghazi Muhammad Hussain of Chak No. 423, Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari in his speech alleged that Hakim Ghulam Murtaza, the father of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, had contributed fifty horsemen to Sardar Nau Nihal Singh to fight against the Muslim King, Bahadur Shah, in the battle of Bala Kot.
While commenting on these speeches Mr. Anwar Ali, D. I. G., C. I. D., remarked on 28th October 1952 that the reference to Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth was objectionable, that the allegation that the Mirzais had anything to do with the Jangshahi or the Lahore Cantonment air crash was false because one of the persons killed in the former, General Sher Khan, was himself a Mirzai, that the speeches of the Ahrar leaders were not only venomous but indecent and offensive, that there was no decrease in the number of conferences and hatred continued to be preached and that he did not see why for such mischievous speeches some kind of ban should not be imposed on Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari. He added that the intelligentsia were getting tired of such speeches which were corrupting the whole nation. The Home Secretary on 29th October expressed the view that time had come when Government should review the whole position because the tone and tenor of the speeches delivered by the Ahrar leaders was marked by their mischievous and highly objectionable nature. He recommended that the Chief Minister should call a meeting of officers when he was free from the forthcoming Muslim League Conference at Lyallpur and that till then no action should be taken. On 31st November, the Secretary to the Chief Minister noted on the file that the Chief Minister desired that this case should be put up to him after his return from Lyallpur.
The public meeting at Rawalpindi under the auspices of the All Muslim Parties Convention was held from 14th to 16th November 1952, the prominent speakers being Master Taj-ud-Din Ansari, Sheikh Husam-ud-Din, Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari, Ehsan Ahmad Shujabadi and Muhammad Ali Jullundri.
Master Taj-ud-Din Ansari in his speech accused Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan of anti-State and anti-Islam activities and alleged that he would have to face a trial in Court on these charges. He said that Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan was a British agent and a murtadd, that he was not sincere to Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din and that Mirzais should be socially and economically boycotted. Ehsan Ahmad Shujabadi described the movement as a struggle between wafadars andghaddars and between sadaqat and kufr and gave expression to the view that violence could be used for protection of Islam though not for its propagation. Hafiz Muhammad Said said that Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din was a hato (derisive term for a Kashmiri) like him and owed his position to pro-British activities and that he was responsible for the lives of 2½ lac victims of famine in Bengal. He also described Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan as a kafir. He further alleged that drinking, dishonesty, immorality and corruption were on the increase in Pakistan and that Ministers were travelling without ticket. He warned the authorities that if the unanimous demands of the Musalmans were not accepted they shall have to accompany Mirza Ghulam Ahmad on the Doomsday as surely as pharaoh shall have to ride a pig. Sheikh Husam-ud-Din alleged that the Mirzais had helped the British during the 1857 Mutiny with arms and horsemen and that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad’s forefathers had joined the Sikh forces against Shah Ismail Shahid at Bala Kot. Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari said that the Mirzais intended to re-unite India and Pakistan. Muhammad Ali Jullundri alleged that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and all his followers were zindiqs about whom the Holy Prophet had ordained that if any one killed them he was equal to 100 martyrs in spirituality. He suggested that the epithet kazzab should be used with the name of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and alleged that 722 Muslims had become Mirzais in the Railway Department when Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan was Railway Member to the Government of India and that Mr. Ijaz Ahmad, Import and Export Officer, Karachi, and Mr. Farooqi, Chief Secretary, Sind Government, were propagating Mirzaeeat in the course of their official duties.
When the case came up to Mr. Nazir Ahmad, S. P. (B), he, on 24th November 1952, wrote that a case against Muhammad Ali Jullundri had been pending investigation under section 21 of the Punjab Public Safety Act for the Speech made by him in the district of Montgomery and that he was inquiring from S. P., Montgomery, what had happened to that case because it did not help the administration to register a case against a bad political speaker and not to send it to Court for a long time. He also remarked that it was time that Muhammad Ali Jullundri, who was one of the worst speakers among the Ahrar, were prosecuted or detained under the Punjab Public Safety Act. On 25thNovember 1952, Mr. Anwar Ali, D. I. G., C. I. D., submitted the case to Government for information and noted that the Chief Minister had directed that on his return from Karachi he would discuss how to deal with militant sectarian speakers.
The Khatm-i-Nubuwwat conference at Shujabad in the district of Multan was held on 19th and 20th November 1952, the important speakers on that occasion being Maulvi Muhammad Ali Jullundri, Mirza Ghulam Nabi Janbaz, Sheikh Husam-ud-Din, Maulvi Ghulam Ghaus Sarhaddi, Qazi Ehsan Ahmad Shujabadi and Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari. Maulvi Ghulam Ghaus in his speech remarked that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad used to get his legs kneaded by women one of whom was named Bhano, that he was fond of looking at naked women and that his son (Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad) had admitted that he used to take liquor. Maulvi Muhammad Ali Jullundri described Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as ‘ullu ka patha’ and said that the mother of Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din could consider herself to be fortunate in having her son as the Prime Minister but the country was unfortunate because the Prime Minister could not understand things. Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari again made some reference to Queen Victoria.
The case came up to Mr. Anwar Ali who recorded the following note on it on 8th December 1952: —
“I brought to Government’s notice, once before, a speech which Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari made at Lyallpur in which he made indecent and rude remarks against Queen Victoria. At Shujabad, once again, he has made foul and obscene references to Queen Victoria.
2. Muhammad Ali Jullundri went to the extent of describing the founder of the Ahmadiya faith as ‘ullu ka patha’. Can we blame the Ahmadis if they resent such remarks and flare up? If they take offence and do anything, the Ahrar will further intensify Ahmadiya baiting. One incident will lead to more bitterness and the vicious cycle will never end.
3. Government may agree to warnings being issued once again to the Ahrar leaders particularly Sayyad Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari and Muhammad Ali Jullundri. Government should not tolerate such vile speeches, for the public is being corrupted. The proper course should be to prosecute both these leaders but as the Central Government declines to define its attitude towards the Ahrar and the Punjab Government cannot act unilaterally, I suggest that a warning by H. S. or C. S. should be administered. 4. I am becoming more and more convinced that the Ahrar are not working to help Pakistan and Islam. Their object is to prepare the ground for the next elections when they will emerge as an anti-League party or as a distinctive group within the League.”
The Home Secretary marked the case for information to the Chief Minister saying that a meeting of officers to review and consider the whole question had already been fixed. When the file was received by Mr. Anwar Ali, he required S. P. (A) and S. P. (B) to speak to him with a view to drawing up a list of points which were to be placed in the meeting of officers that was to come off in the next few days. In compliance with this, Mr. Nazir Ahmad, S. P. (B), wrote the following note: —
“In addition to this file and the file placed below to which are attached two placards concerning the boycott of the Mirzais and keeping separate utensils for Mirzais the following files are added: —
(1) The file containing the speech of Bashir Ahmad, Manzur Ahmad and Karamat Ali of the Sialkot district in which Bashir Ahmad said that a sister-in-law of Mirza Mahmud Ahmad was raped by Dr. Ehsan Ali and he was only awarded ten strokes of shoes and that if Daultana helped the Ahmadis he would be confronted with shoes. The other speakers abused Mirza Ghulam Ahmad publicly.
(2) The file containing the speeches of Iftikhar-ul-Hasan of Lyallpur. In his speech he made on the 8th of August he said that they had no faith in the officers of the ‘ghaddar’ Government like Mumtaz Muhammad Daultana, Sir Zafrullah Khan and Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din. In his speech he made on the 29th of August Maulvi Iftikhar-ul-Hasan remarked that Najaf Khan was responsible for Shams-ul-Haq’s murder and the murder of the late Khan Liaquat Ali Khan and that of the late Sahibzada Itzaz-ud-Din Ahmad Khan. Iftikhar-ul-Hasan was administered a warning by the Deputy Commissioner of Lyallpur at the Home Secretary’s suggestion.
(3) The file containing the speech of Maulvi Abdul Khanan of the Campbellpur district in which he said that the Mirzais were fit to be murdered and Khwaja Nazim-ud-Din was a kafir, a murtadd, a fool and an ignorant person. This Maulvi was also warned through the Deputy Commissioner, Campbellpur.
(4) The file containing the speech of Khan Abdus Sattar Khan Niazi, M. L. A., he made at Jhang on 20th September 1952, in which he not only criticised the Ahmadis but also remarked that police constables and Government clerks were finding it difficult to make both ends meet on account of their low salaries and further said that Daultana was a dacoit and was robbing the nation. Government finally decided not to take any action against Abdus Sattar Khan Niazi.
(5) The file containing the proceedings of a public meeting held by the All Muslim Parties Convention at Rawalpindi from the 14th to the 16th of November 1952. In this meeting Master Taj-ud-Din and Muhammad Ali Jullundri made violent speeches and Muhammad Ali Jullundri remarked that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and all his followers were zindiqs and that anybody who killed a false claimant to prophethood was equal to 100 martyrs in spirituality.
2. The Ahrar speakers need to be discouraged from speaking disparagingly against Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan and the founder of the Ahmadiya sect in public meetings. They usually refer in their speeches to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a Dajjal, a liar and a womaniser and to Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan as a traitor and an enemy of Pakistan.
3. The Ahrar speakers try to impress upon the people that it was a great disgrace of the Holy Prophet if some people like the Ahmadis considered Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a prophet. In this way the common man’s sentiments are played upon and he is incited to acts of violence against the Ahmadis.
4. The Ahrar speakers are now concentrating upon the social and commercial boycott of the Ahmadis by ostracising them as non-Muslims and encouraging shopkeepers to show boards on their shops that separate utensils are maintained by them for the Ahmadis.
5. The Ahrar speakers are also trying to incite Muslims not to allow the Ahmadis to bury their dead Ahmadis in their graveyards.
6. The Ahrar speakers have been trying to press upon the people that the Prime Minister of Pakistan and the Chief Minister of the Punjab are supporting the Ahmadis and that is why they have not acceded to their demands of declaring the Ahmadis as a separate community and turning out Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan from the Pakistan Cabinet.
7. The Ahrar speakers have been trying to emphasise in their speeches that the Mirzais should not be allowed to hold key posts in the Pakistan Army or other services. In this way they have been trying to foster communalism between the Ahmadis and other Muslims in the service.
8. The Ahrar speakers have been openly preaching that Mirza Mahmud Ahmad of Rabwah and his followers are not loyal to the Pakistan State and they are anxious to re-unite Pakistan with India as Qadian, where the founder of their sect is buried, is in India and they are anxious to go back to Qadian.
9. The Ahrar speakers have also been preaching time and again that it was due to the treachery of Mirza Mahmud Ahmad and Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan that the Gurdaspur district was annexed to India and not to Pakistan.
10. The Ahrar speakers have also been preaching that the Kashmir question had not been solved due to Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan’s insincerity and the strained relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan were also due to his presence in the Pakistan Cabinet.
11. The Ahrar speakers have also been broadcasting in their speeches that Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan was an agent of the British and the Ahmadiya sect was encouraged and developed by the British Government because its founder was against ‘Jihad’. The daily ‘Zamindar’ and the ‘Azad’ which is an organ of the Ahrar almost daily publish articles in their papers which are scandalous and vilifying to the Ahmadis, the founder of their sect and Chaudhri Zafrullah Khan.
12. The result of all this agitation on the part of the Ahrar is that the relations between the Muslims and the Ahmadis have become more strained and the generality of the people have begun to think that those who are at the helm of affairs in this country have no regard for the feelings of the people and support the Ahmadis. In this way the State has Suffered and the Ahrar leaders have gained in their stature in the public eye. Another result of this agitation has been that the whole class of mullas has become turbulent in their daily utterances and Friday sermons. Instead of confining their sermons on religion they now are invariably indulging in politics, particularly in their Friday sermons,”
The meeting was held on 24th December 1952 in the Chief Minister’s room in which Mr. Qurban Ali Khan, Inspector-General of Police, Home Secretary and Mr. Anwar Ali, D.I.G., C. I. D., took part. The only decision taken was that where a speech offended against a provision of law, legal action should be taken and that it was not necessary to take any further action. In compliance with this order a letter was written to S. P., Sialkot, pointing out to him that as Manzur Ahmad, Karamat Ali and Bashir Ahmad, whose prosecution had been recommended by him and the District Magistrate for speeches at the Gulu Shah Fair were petty persons, it would not be useful to prosecute them on this occasion.
A conference under the auspices of All Muslim Parties Convention was again going to be held in Sialkot on 9th and 10th February 1953. Though the conference was advertised by one Allama Muhammad Yaqub Khan, the Ahrar were at the back of the whole show. On 6th November 1952, Mr. Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Deputy Commissioner, Sialkot, wrote to the Commissioner saying that though Government instructions contained in D. O. letter No. 8469-84-BDSB, dated the 5th June 1952, were clear on the point that section 144, Criminal Procedure Code, should be promulgated, it had been subsequently decided in a conference of officers held under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary in his office on Saturday, the 5th July 1952, that the Convention called for the 13th July 1952 in Lahore was not to be interfered with and that he took this decision to mean that no interference with such meetings was called for by the district authorities. He pointed out that such conferences were held at Gujranwala and Lahore and no action was taken and inquired whether the same policy was intended to be followed in the district of Sialkot. A copy of this letter was forwarded demi-officially to the Chief Secretary to Government, Punjab, which was placed before the Home Secretary on 9th November 1952. The Commissioner forwarded the Deputy Commissioner’s reference to the Chief Secretary on 9th November 1952, with the opinion that the action proposed to be taken by the D. C., Sialkot, in not interfering with the conference appeared to be right. The Home Secretary noted that Government had no desire of issuing orders contrary to what the District Magistrate intended to do and that, in view of the last sentence of the District Magistrate’s letter, no action was necessary.
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