The Human Rights Movement (HRM) has condemned the Lal Masjid stand off and the government's decision to undertake an operation six months after the initial capture of the mosque, Madrassah and the children's library.
The HRM has said the operation has diverted the attention of people from the crises confronted the government on account of the pro-democracy movement led by the legal fraternity and the anger and resentment in Sindh and in Balochistan due to the government's wholly inadequate response to the devastation caused by torrential rains.
In a statement issued on Sunday, Abdul Ali Zakir Osmani of HRM said more than two dozen people who had lost their lives in past four days could have been prevented if the government had not emboldened the Lal Masjid brigade by allowing it complete freedom to enforce its version of Islamic justice over the population of G-6 and surrounding areas over the past six months.
He said the operation had brought miseries to the lives of thousands of people in the vicinity who were living in a virtual war situation. However, Osmani said even more insidious than this was the fact that the operation was launched as a means of buying time for the government in the face of its legitimacy crises and showed the regime was now concerned only with its survival at whatever cost.