An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore sentenced on Monday Zaheerul Hassan Shah, the deputy chief of the banned Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), to ten years in prison for inciting the public against the then chief justice of Pakistan.
At one of the gatherings outside the Lahore Press Club, where TLP chief Saad Rizvi was also in attendance, Shah delivered remarks amounting to incitement of violence against then Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa.
Qila Gujjar Singh police had registered the case against the cleric in 2024, pertaining to his speech for inciting violence against the top judge of the Supreme Court for issuing the judgment in the Mubarak Sani case.
The FIR, filed on the complaint of Station House Officer Hammad Hussain, was registered under sections 6 (terrorism), 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism), and 11W (printing, publishing, or disseminating any material to incite hatred or giving projection to any person convicted for a terrorist act or any proscribed organisation or an organisation placed under observation) of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997.
Judge Arshad Javed announced the guilty verdict and handed over the custody of the convict to the superintendent of the central jail Kot Lakhpat.
During the trial, the prosecution presented 15 witnesses in support of the charges against the cleric. Deputy Prosecutor Abdul Jabbar Dogar sought punishment for the accused under the law.
On behalf of the cleric, Advocate Rana Maqsoodul Haq presented final arguments, urging the court to acquit his client.
However, the defence counsel did not fully deny the veracity of the allegations.
Several FIRs were also registered against the TLP leaders and workers in different cities after Shah had issued a call for violence against Chief Justice Isa.
Strong condemnation surfaced from political circles and clerics after the incident.
Pakistani government officials vowed to take strict action against “those spreading lies,” stating that elements with “vested political interests” were “spreading blood and violence” in the name of religion.
The defence minister said that the Supreme Court had issued a judgment in the Mubarak Sani case, but the elements concerned were still spreading propaganda based on lies.
“The state will not allow you to issue a fatwa (decree) to kill someone. If we allow this, the writ of the state will crumble,” Asif had said.
Information Minister Atta Tarar had asserted that there was “no space in our society” for such inciting remarks, adding that there were “political motives” behind them. He further highlighted that a case under the anti-terrorism laws had been registered.
He also called out the religio-political group for issuing “politically motivated false statements” against the top judge and said that there was no room for such rhetoric in Pakistan.
“There is no room for such statements in the State of Pakistan, and it will not be tolerated,” Tarar said on the X platform.
The federal cabinet banned the religio-political group TLP under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) in October, days after nationwide protests over Gaza claimed the lives of several protesters and police officers and paralysed major highways and city roads from Karachi to Islamabad.
The group, founded in 2015 as a movement, turned into a political party in 2016. It had also faced a ban by the Imran Khan-led government in 2021 after violent protests.
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