CHAPTER 6

Impact of State Policies on Interfaith

Relations in Pakistan

Ali Ahmed

INTRODUCTION
Religious extremism has landed Pakistan into a quagmire from where the
nation’s escape is increasingly becoming more challenging. Perpetual vio-
lence and deadly strikes by those who have come to be known as “jihadists”
by the international media have pushed the nation to the brink. People of
all faiths, including Muslims, are targeted by these religious extremists
who claim they are seeking to transform Pakistan into a true Islamic state.
Thousands of Pakistanis have died in the past decades in religiously moti-
vated attacks. The worship place of no religion is safe. Hindus, Christians,
Ahmadis, Shiites, and almost anyone who does not subscribe to their ide-
ology are considered heretics and infidels by the jihadists.
In this chapter, I will first discuss the dreams of a secular and pluralistic
state of Pakistan’s founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. I then spell out what
went tragically wrong after his death just a little over a year after Pakistan’s
independence. The use of religion as a tool, especially for defense and
security purposes, was its major pitfall. The chapter looks at the subse-
quent Islamization of the state and the recruitment and promotion of

A. Ahmed ( )
Independent Pakistani Shiite Muslim scholar of religion and
society, Sydney, Australia
e-mail: ali.interfaithdialogue@gmail.com

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 73

E.K.-F. Chia (ed.), Interfaith Dialogue,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-59698-7_6
74 A. AHMED

armed militants by invoking religion. It then examines the consequences

of these state policies on interfaith relations and their impact on members
of minority Muslim groups and those of non-Muslim faiths.

FOUNDING YEARS OF PAKISTAN

Pakistan was not meant to be what it has become today. The founding
father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, had proposed to establish a progressive,
pluralistic, and inclusive nation where each individual was an equal citizen
of the state irrespective of any consideration. Addressing the people of
Pakistan on August 11, 1947, Jinnah said:

You are free, you are free to go to your temples; you are free to go to your
mosques or to any other places of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may
belong to any religion, caste or creed that has nothing to do with the busi-
ness of the state....In the course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus
and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because
that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citi-
zens of the State.1

Jinnah had clearly chalked out the contours of future Pakistan on the eve
of independence. It was to be a country where all citizens were equal and
their faiths had nothing to do with the state. It was to be a secular state.
But, unfortunately, Jinnah did not live long enough to realize his dreams
of a pluralistic and secular Pakistan. His successors discarded his vision and
embarked on an opposite course. Ardeshir Cowasji argues that Jinnah’s
successors betrayed him by deviating from his vision. His comments:

Once he was dead, those who followed swiftly broke faith with him and
it took them but six months to betray both Jinnah and the people of his
country. They managed to do everything he had warned them not to do,
and those that have followed the followers have succeeded beyond Jinnah’s
wildest dreams in converting his country to quite the opposite of what he
intended and in polluting the minds of its people. It was not to be for better,
but unequivocally for worse.2

Jinnah’s successors began to Islamize Pakistan. In March 1949, the

country’s first Constituent Assembly passed an Objectives Resolution that
was to serve as guiding principle for the future constitution writing of the
new state. The Resolution reads:
 IMPACT OF STATE POLICIES ON INTERFAITH RELATIONS IN PAKISTAN 75

Whereas sovereignty over the entire universe belongs to God Almighty

alone and the authority which he has delegated to the state of Pakistan
through its people for being exercised within the limits prescribed by Him
as a sacred trust; The Constituent Assembly representing the people of
Pakistan resolves to frame a constitution for the sovereign independent
State of Pakistan; Whereas the state shall exercise its powers and authority
through the chosen representatives of the people; Whereas the principles
of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice, as enunciated
by Islam, shall be fully observed; Whereas the Muslims shall be enabled to
order their lives in the individual and collective spheres in accordance with
the teachings and requirements of Islam as set out in the Holy Quran and
Sunnah; Whereas adequate provisions shall be made for the minorities to
freely profess and practice their religions and develop their cultures.3

The resolution dashed the prospect of Jinnah’s Pakistan and laid the foun-
dation for a theological state. According to Ziad Haider, “the Resolution
injected religion into the core of Pakistan.”4 It categorized the people into
Muslims and others. The resolution was a deadly mix of religion and poli-
tics and was a poison for interfaith relations and harmony. It was, indeed,
the Islamic baptizing of the Pakistani state. Justifying the mingling of faith
and state, Prime Minister Liaqat Ali Khan had this to say:

Islam is not just a matter of private beliefs and conduct. It expects its fol-
lowers to build a society for the purpose of good life....For the purpose of
emphasizing these values and to give them validity, it will be necessary for
the state to direct and guide the activities of the Muslims in such a manner
as to bring about a new social order based upon the principles of Islam.5

ISLAM AS TOOL IN STATE SECURITY

The Resolution was the first step toward the process of nationalizing Islam
at the expense of other faiths, notably Hinduism and Christianity, as well
as Ahmadi and Shiite Islam. It emboldened the extremists in their convic-
tion that Pakistan was born to be an Islamist state. From the very begin-
ning, Pakistani policymakers were actively using Islam as a tool in state
security matters. After attaining independence in 1947, the Pakistani lead-
ers faced certain real and perceived security challenges. They feared that
India was bent on undoing the partition and nullifying Pakistan’s indepen-
dence. Haider observes:
76 A. AHMED

The Pakistan that emerged from the ravages of partition consisted of an

ethnically fractured West and East Pakistan divided by a thousand miles of
Indian territory…looming over this ideological and territorial vulnerability
was the conviction that an irrevocably hostile India was bent on unraveling
Pakistan, as it continued to stonewall on the delivery of Pakistan’s vital and
due share of resources inherited from the British. It was in this atmosphere
of insecurity that Pakistan’s rulers embarked on the process of using Islam
to fortify a nation.6

The Pakistani rulers believed the country’s various ethnic groups could
be united only through Islam. In 1948, Pakistan engaged in a war with
India over the disputed Kashmir territory. As part of its military strategy,
the Pakistan Army invoked Islam and, thus, was able to recruit and trained
jihadists in militancy to fight India. Haider adds: “The government in turn
called on religious scholars to issue supportive fatwas or religious decrees.
This was to be the beginning of a longstanding state policy of using reli-
giously motivated proxies to asymmetrically secure political and territorial
gains vis-à-vis a seemingly hegemonic India.”7 Here, it is important to
note that while using Islam for political and strategic ends, the policy-
makers failed to foresee that promoting religious extremism could have
disastrous consequences for interfaith relations in Pakistan. Because the
jihadists were indoctrinated with an extremist ideology that viewed people
of other faiths as infidels, historians assert that it was the state that had
sowed the seeds of extremism, putting the security of Christians, Hindus,
and other non-Muslims at risk.
Repeating the same policy in the late 1960s, Pakistan’s military regime,
headed by General Yahya Khan, also resorted to using Islam as a tool to
crush a separatist insurgency in the Bengal province. The army raised two
militant groups, Al-Badr and Al-Shams, trained them in warfare, and used
them against the Bengalis.8 These two state-sponsored militias committed
horrible atrocities against the Bengali civilians. They allegedly acted as the
Pakistan Army’s death squads. Al-Badr reportedly killed ten professors of
Dacca University, five leading journalists, two litterateurs, and twenty-six
doctors in Dacca alone.9
In addition, Pakistan also launched military crackdowns against the
Bengalis that killed an appallingly large number of people. According
to Bengali historian Muntassir Mamoon, the Pakistan army might have
killed as many as 50,000 Bengalis.10 The Bengalis, however, claim that
3,000,000 were killed.11 During the military crackdowns, the government
 IMPACT OF STATE POLICIES ON INTERFAITH RELATIONS IN PAKISTAN 77

is reported to have painted the political conflict in religious colors.

Haqqani argues that the military projected the conflict in Bengal as a
jihad and the army personnel as mujahidin who were fighting against the
enemies of Islam. The state propaganda blamed the Hindus and anti-
Islam forces for the political crisis in East Pakistan. It is further alleged
that, through regular speeches, the army commanders indoctrinated
their troops with the ideology of jihad against the perceived infidels. The
Pakistani military commander in Bengal, General Abdullah Khan Niazi,
frequently quoted passages from the Qur’an and Sunnah (prophetic tra-
dition) in his conversations with his troops.12 On one occasion, General
Niazi proclaimed:

As Muslims, we have always fought against an enemy who is numerically

and materially superior. The enemy can never deter us. It was the spirit of
jihad and dedication to Islam that the strongest adversaries were mauled and
defeated by a handful of Muslims. The battles of Uhad, Badar, Khyber and
Damascus are the proof of what the Muslims could do.13

Analysis shows that the state policy of producing and patronizing jihad-
ists for strategic purposes has polarized the country into the extremists and
the rest of the population. And due to continued state patronage the jihad-
ists always seem to have the upper hand over the rest. Reports suggest that
the military dictator General Yahya Khan, who had ordered the military
crackdown in 1971, made an overt and covert alliance between the army
and religious extremists that lasts to this day. Haqqani writes: “During
the thirty-three months he held power as chief martial law administrator,
Yahya Khan had qualitatively enhanced the alliance between Pakistan’s
security establishment and the Islamists.”14

ISLAMIZATION OF PAKISTAN
The Islamization of the state became even more pronounced in 1974 when
the government declared the Ahmadi sect as non-Muslim. In order to
appease the Islamist parties and secure their political support, the govern-
ment of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto declared the Ahmadis as non-Muslim minori-
ties through a constitutional amendment in September 1974.15 It was a
lethal move since the government was now formally into the business of
defining people’s faith and deciding who was and who was not a Muslim.
This move initiated the institutionalized persecution of the Ahmadis in
78 A. AHMED

Pakistan. But the worst was yet to come because the ugliest nightmares for
sound-minded Pakistanis began in 1977 when General Zia ul Haq took
over as military ruler of Pakistan.
General Zia surpassed all his predecessors in religious bigotry and in
legalizing the persecution of Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus, and others.
Soon after seizing power, Zia embarked on a mission to Islamize Pakistan
and turn it into a true Islamic state. Hussain Haqqani argues:

Undoubtedly, Zia ul Haq went farthest in defining Pakistan as an Islamic

state, and he nurtured the jihadist ideology that now threatens to destabilize
most of the Muslim world. But, in doing so, he saw himself as carrying for-
ward the nation and state building project that started soon after the demise
of Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah.16

Zia believed that the survival of Pakistan depended on a national

Islamic identity. During his rule, evidence shows that state-sponsored
Islamist religiosity became more pronounced and omnipresent in the
country. The general treated Pakistan as if it was inhabited by Muslims
alone. Nowhere in the entire drama of Zia’s Islamization could we see
any mention of, or reference to, the well-being or empowerment of
those of other faiths. Haqqani cites General K.M. Arif as saying, “It was
a matter of faith with Zia ul Haq to combine politics with religion and
govern an Islamic country in accordance with the dictates of the Qur’an
and Sunnah.” Haqqani then refers to an interview with BBC journalist
Brian Barron in 1978 where General Zia publicly acknowledged that
he had a mission to “purify and cleanse” Pakistan.17 The regime, there-
fore, extended full support and patronage to Islamist political parties,
most of which harbored extremist and paranoid views about other faiths.
Haqqani continues, “Zia ul Haq turned toward the organized religious
parties especially the Jamaat-e-Islami, both for political support and
ideological inspiration. The Jamaat-e-Islami became ‘a pillar of the Zia
regime and an ardent supporter of the general’s Islamic state’.”18 The
Jamaat-e-Islami was the same party that had forced the government
to declare Ahmadis as non-Muslims in 1974. For Zia, the Jamaat-e-
Islami served to underpin his regime. The government also inducted
radical Muslim clerics into state institutions and enhanced their role in
the administration.
In 1984, the regime enacted the Section 295-C law that prescribed
the death sentence for blasphemy. This law enabled the Islamists to perse-
 IMPACT OF STATE POLICIES ON INTERFAITH RELATIONS IN PAKISTAN 79

cute especially the non-Muslims in Pakistan. Besides, another law, Section

298, was also enacted that specifically targeted the Ahmadi community. It
prohibited the Ahmadi sect from directly or indirectly posing as Muslims.19
Under the blasphemy laws the Ahmadi faith is blasphemous because its
followers consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as a prophet in addition to
believing in all the other teachings of Islam. These laws paved the way for
an institutionalized persecution of the Christians, Ahmadis, Hindus, and
other non-Muslims, and irreparably scarred interfaith relations.

THE AFGHANISTAN WAR

General Zia ul Haq’s most notorious policy, however, was the promo-
tion of violent jihad and the production of armed militants against the
Soviet Union. In 1979 the Soviets invaded and occupied Afghanistan, a
move that stirred the USA to launch a covert war against its communist
rival with the help of Pakistan. Soon, economic and military aid from the
USA and Arab countries started flowing into Pakistan for the purpose of
raising, training, arming, and sending jihadist groups into Afghanistan
to fight the communist Soviet forces. Steve Cole records, “Zia sought
and obtained political control over the CIA’s weapons and money. He
insisted every gun and dollar allocated for the Mujahidin pass through
Pakistani hands.”20
The US aid emboldened Zia, who further committed himself to carry-
ing out the project of Islamizing Pakistan and subsequently strengthening
his hold on power. The country’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), began recruiting and training jihadists who were
sent to Afghanistan while, in Pakistan, according to Haqqani, “The ISI
Directorate’s Internal Wing ran a covert operation of its own, aimed at
bolstering Islamist influence at home and undermining support for oppo-
sition political parties.”21
Furthermore, the government also began rewriting the textbooks of
schools and colleges with an aim, according to historian K.K.  Aziz, of
bringing them in line with the Islamist ideological agenda under Zia ul
Haq. Aziz argues that these textbooks supported military rule in Pakistan,
inculcated hatred for Hindus, glorified wars, and distorted the pre-1947
history of the area constituting Pakistan.22
During Zia ul Haq’s rule, Islamic religious seminaries also mushroomed
across the country. In the 1990s Pakistan had approximately 6000 semi-
naries that enrolled a half-million students of diverse ethnicities. Around
80 A. AHMED

1500 of such schools preached jihad and were instrumental in provid-

ing military training to the students.23 Following the Afghan jihad in the
early 1990s, the extremists returned home from Afghanistan and turned
their guns toward the Shiite Muslims. In the following years sectarian
tensions reached unprecedented heights. A senior Pakistani police official
attributed the increased sectarian tension in the country to the return of
“Islamic soldiers” from Afghanistan.24

THE TALIBAN
The policy of using religion for politics in Pakistan has not been restricted to
military regimes alone. Democratic governments have been equally inter-
ested in exploiting Islam for political gain. During the 1990s, Pakistan’s
democratic governments supported and launched in Afghanistan an army
of religious extremists, called the Taliban. Relations between Pakistan
and Afghanistan have for the most part been strained by the issue of the
Durand Line. Afghanistan has a claim over certain territories of Pakistan
which has poisoned the bilateral relations. Using the Taliban as proxy,
Pakistan wanted to suppress the Durand Line and establish trade routes
to Central Asia via Afghanistan. The Taliban captured cities after cities in
Afghanistan, a move which was applauded by the government and reli-
gious parties in Pakistan. With Pakistan’s support, the Taliban captured
almost the entire country by 1999.
The Taliban immediately implemented the strictest interpretation
of Sharia Law ever seen in the Muslim world. They closed down girls’
schools and banned women from working outside the home, smashed
television sets, forbade a whole array of sports and recreational activities,
and ordered all males to grow long beards.25 Charged with the ideology
of jihad and extremism, the Taliban committed the most unimaginable
atrocities in Afghanistan, notably in the city of Mazar Sharif where around
8000 innocent civilians of the Shiite faith were slaughtered in 1998.26 They
also destroyed the 1000-year-old statues of Buddha in Bamiyan Valley of
Afghanistan in 1999 under the pretext that the statues were un-Islamic.
A French scholar, Olivier Roy, has termed the barbaric Taliban rule and
its subsequent downfall as “the failure of political Islam.”27 After the US
invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, most of the extremist fundamentalists
escaped from Afghanistan and focused their activities inside Pakistan.
It looks like Pakistan’s security establishment has, unfortunately, been
under the delusion that it could simply use and then discard the extremist
 IMPACT OF STATE POLICIES ON INTERFAITH RELATIONS IN PAKISTAN 81

jihadists as and when it needed. The reality, however, is that the extremists
who were produced as a result of deliberate state policies have now become
the Frankenstein that seeks to destroy the fabric of the very state and soci-
ety that nurtured them. Indications are that the state is now largely unable
to protect its citizens against the deadly attacks of these extremists who
have turned terrorists within their own country. The large-scale persecution
of Muslim and non-Muslim Pakistanis by terror groups seem to be proving
that the policymakers have been unforgivably wrong in their weird security
strategies and calculations.

PERSECUTION OF MINORITY MUSLIM GROUPS

The jihadist ideologies of the extremist groups such as the Taliban,
Lashkar Jhangvi (Army of Jhangvi), Sipah Sahaba (Army of the Prophet’s
Companion), and Jamaat ud Dawa are highly exclusive and incompatible
with most other faiths that exist in Pakistan. These groups consider non-
Muslims as infidels who, in their view, should be either converted to Islam
or simply eliminated. Faith-based persecution is becoming more severe
and people are living under perpetual fear of threat to their lives, honor,
and property.
The Ahmadis, for example, suffer persecution on a daily basis. When the
government declared them non-Muslim in 1974 it marked the beginning
of institutionalized and legalized persecution of the community. Later,
in the 1980s, the Zia ul Haq regime further tightened the noose around
their necks by enacting certain discriminatory laws. Under the blasphemy
laws, the Ahmadis cannot propagate their faith publicly or build mosques
or use Muslim salutations. The Ahmadis face persecution literally in every
field of life, be it in education, business, or the civil service.28
In 2008, at least twenty-three Ahmadi students were expelled from
Punjab Medical College due solely to their faith, while ten other students
were dismissed from schools in Faisalabad city in 2011 for the same rea-
son. Elsewhere, Ahmadi students are deprived admission in professional
colleges and refused accommodation in the attached hostels.29 However,
the worst episode for the Ahmadis came in May 2010 when terrorists
attacked two Ahmadi places of worship in the city of Lahore. They mas-
sacred ninety-four Ahmadis and injured more than hundred.30 A terrorist
group, Punjabi Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The fate of the Shiite Muslims has been even worse. They are consid-
ered heretics and infidels by the extremists. Thousands have perished in
82 A. AHMED

terrorist attacks across Pakistan since the 1990s. The terror group Lashkar-
e-Jhangvi has repeatedly carried out deadly attacks against the ethnic
Hazaras, a Shiite Muslim community based mostly in the Balochistan
province. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi issued the following proclamation in
2001: “All Shias are worthy of killing. We will rid Pakistan of unclean
people. Pakistan means ‘land of the pure’ and the Shias have no right to
live in this country. We have the edict and signatures of revered scholars,
declaring the Shia infidels.”31

PERSECUTION OF NON-MUSLIM FAITH GROUPS

Like the minority Muslim groups, the Hindus are also living in fear of
persecution by the extremists. According to the 1998 census, Hindus
make up 2.5 % of Pakistan’s population and are mainly concentrated in the
Sindh province. Decades of state-sponsored Islamization has condemned
the Hindus to the status of second-class citizens. They are subjected to
persecution and forced conversions to Islam. The extremists attack and
desecrate their temples, mostly with impunity. In November 2012, a
group of radicals raided a Hindu locality in Karachi city and desecrated the
Sri Krishna Ram temple, smashing Hindu religious icons, tearing up the
Bhagavad Gita, and looting the gold.32 According to the Pakistan Hindu
Council chief, Ramesh Kumar, the Hindus are picked up by kidnappers
and their daughters subjected to forced conversion to Islam.33 The con-
tinued persecution of Hindus has forced them to leave Pakistan and seek
refuge in neighboring India. In March 2012, an Indian official at the min-
istry of external affairs in New Delhi confirmed that every month eight to
ten Hindu families migrate from Pakistan.34
Similarly, the condition of Christians is no better than other minori-
ties in Pakistan. The religious extremists often invoke the notorious blas-
phemy laws to persecute Christians for a variety of reasons, including
settling personal enmities, grabbing of their lands, jealousy, et cetera. In
August 2009, angry mobs accused a Christian of desecrating the Holy
Qur’an and attacked a Christian locality in the Gojra district. The mob
killed six Christians and burned forty to fifty homes.35 The anti-Christian
violence was incited by the extremist Islamist groups. In November
2010, a Pakistani court handed down the death sentence to an illiterate
Christian woman, Asia Bibi, for allegedly insulting the Prophet of Islam.
Following the court ruling, the Governor of Punjab province, Salman
Taseer, expressed solidarity with Asia Bibi and criticized the blasphemy
 IMPACT OF STATE POLICIES ON INTERFAITH RELATIONS IN PAKISTAN 83

laws. This led to Taseer’s assassination by his own bodyguard in Islamabad

in January 2011. Two months later, the only Christian minister in the
federal government, Shahbaz Bhatti, was also gunned down because he
too was critical of the blasphemy laws.36 A radical Muslim cleric promised
500,000 Pakistan rupees to anyone who was prepared to kill Asia Bibi.37
Emboldened by impunity, the extremists again attacked the Christian
community in the Joseph Colony neighborhood of Lahore in March 2013,
torching more than 150 Christian homes.38 The crime was the same: a
Christian had allegedly insulted the Qur’an. The allegation was proven to
be false later. Furthermore, the deadliest attack on the Pakistani Christians
was carried out in Peshawar city in September 2013. Two suicide bombers
struck Christian worshippers following a Sunday morning service in the
historic All Saints Church, killing at least seventy-eight people, includ-
ing thirty-four women and seven children.39 The Tehreek Taliban Pakistan
group condoned the Church attack. Talking to BBC Urdu through the
telephone, the Taliban spokesperson, Shahidullah Shahid, said: “We didn’t
carry out the attack. But, we believe it is according to the Shariah.”40

A NATION BATTLING FOR SURVIVAL

In the Pakistan of the jihadists, there is no room for tolerance and coex-
istence. Religious extremism has wiped out almost all opportunities for
interfaith understanding and harmony in Pakistan. The gory environment
in Pakistan indicates that the Islamization process, especially since the Zia
ul Haq’s military rule, has produced horrible results. Today, the country
is reaping the effects of mixing religion with politics and prioritizing one
faith over the other. Religious extremism has engulfed the entire country
where terrorists are increasingly becoming more powerful. The terrorists
do not spare anyone and target not only the non-Muslims but also the
Shiite sect of Islam and other fair-minded Muslims. Experiences of vio-
lence and mindless bloodshed over the last three decades in the country
have shown that the policy of using religion for political and strategic goals
has led to disasters. The policy of nationalizing Islam and marginalizing
the other faiths has not helped unite the country. Instead, it has wreaked
havoc with the entire fabric of the society. After decades of Islamization,
the country is far from being united as one nation.
The founding father Jinnah’s vision of a progressive, religiously tol-
erant, and pluralistic Pakistan has been lost in the darkness of religious
extremism. Jinnah rightly wanted to keep religion and state apart because
he probably foresaw the perils of mingling the two. Those who followed
84 A. AHMED

after him failed to estimate the cost of nationalizing a particular faith while
neglecting the others. It is because of this that, today, the Pakistani state is
battling for its survival. Therefore, it is time for an assessment and reassess-
ment of the laws and policies that have resulted in the present state of the
country and efforts should be made to save it from total collapse.

NOTES
1. Mahomed Ali Jinnah, Quaid-i-Azam Mahomed Ali Jinnah: Speeches as
Governor General of Pakistan, 1947–48 (Karachi: Government of Pakistan,
1964).
2. Ardeshir Cowasji, “Not the Business of the State,” Dawn (Aug 16, 2009),
http://www.dawn.com/news/484385/not-the-business-of-the-state
3. Safdar Mehmood, Pakistan: Political Roots & Development 1947–1999
(Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2000), 409–410.
4. Ziad Haider, “Ideologically Adrift,” in Pakistan: Beyond the ‘Crisis State,’ ed.
Maleeha Lodhi (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2011), 115.
5. Mohammad Taqi, “Objectives of the Resolution,” Daily Times (Apr 11,
2013), http://archives.dailytimes.com.pk/editorial/11-Apr-2013/
comment-objectives-of-the-resolution-dr-mohammad-taqi
6. Haider, “Ideologically Adrift,” 115.
7. Ibid., 117.
8. Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, The Betrayal of East Pakistan (Pakistan: Oxford
University Press, 1998), 78.
9. Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington, DC:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005), 79.
10. Muntassir Mamoon, The Vanquished Generals and the Liberation War of
Bangladesh (Dhaka: Somoy Prokashon, 2000), 89.
11. Kamal Matinuddin, Tragedy of Error: East Pakistan Crisis, 1968–1971
(Lahore, Pakistan: Wajidalis, 1994), 260.
12. Haqqani, Between Mosque and Military, 76.
13. Ibid., 77.
14. Ibid., 86.
15. Human Rights Watch, “Pakistan: Prosecute Ahmadi Massacre Suspects,”
(May 27, 2012), https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/05/27/
pakistan-prosecute-ahmadi-massacre-suspects
16. Haqqani, Between Mosque and Military, 131.
17. Ibid., 133.
18. Ibid., 136–137. The citation within is from Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, “Islamic
Opposition to the Islamic State: The Jamaat-e-Islami, 1977–88,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies 25, no. 2 (May 1993): 261–62.
 IMPACT OF STATE POLICIES ON INTERFAITH RELATIONS IN PAKISTAN 85

19. Human Rights Watch, (May 27, 2012).

20. Steve Cole, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin
Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (London: The Penguin
Press, 2004), 63.
21. Haqqani, Between Mosque and Military, 142.
22. Khursheed Kamal Aziz, The Murder of History: A Critique of History Textbooks
Used in Pakistan (Lahore: Vanguard Books Pvt. Ltd., 1993), 188–205.
23. Musa Khan Jalalzai, The Holy Terror: Islam, Violence and Terrorism in Pakistan
(Lahore: Dua Publications, 2002), 76.
24. Ibid., 71.
25. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central
Asia (London: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 2000), 29.
26. Human Rights Watch, “Massacre of Hazaras in Afghanistan,” HRW 13, no.
1c (February, 2001).
27. Rashid, Taliban, 87.
28. Human Rights Watch, (May 27, 2012).
29. Zofeen T. Ebrahim, “The Lightening Rod that Attracts Most Hatred,” Dawn
(Oct28),http://www.dawn.com/news/669566/ahmadis-the-lightning-rod-that-
attracts-the-most-hatred
30. Human Rights Watch, (May 27, 2012).
31. Khaled Ahmed, “Hunting the Hazara,” Newsweek Pakistan (Mar 11, 2014).
32. Associated Press, “Pakistani Hindus Feel Under Attack,” Dawn (Nov 8,
2012), http://www.dawn.com/news/762491/pakistans-hindus-feel-under-
attack
33. “Killings, Kidnappings & Conversion Haunt Hindus,” Dawn (Mar 6, 2012),
h t t p : / / w w w. d a w n . c o m / n e w s / 7 0 0 6 3 2 / k i l l i n g s - k i d n a p p i n g s -
conversion-haunt-hindus
34. Agence France Press, “Pakistani Hindus Seek Safety in India,” Dawn (Mar
03, 2012), http://www.dawn.com/news/700550/pakistani-hindus-seek-
safety-in-india
35. “Six Killed in Pakistan as Muslims burn Christian Homes,” CNN (Aug 1,
2009).
36. BBC News South Asia, “Q&A: Pakistan’s Controversial Blasphemy Laws,”
BBC (Nov 20, 2012).
37. BBC News South Asia, “Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi ‘Has Price on her
Head’,” BBC (Dec 7, 2012).
38. “Dozens of Houses Torched as Mob Attacks Lahore Christian Locality,”
Dawn (Mar 9, 2013).
39. Ismail Khan & Salman Masood, “Scores are Killed by Suicide Bomb Attack at
Historic Church in Pakistan,” New York Times (Sep 22, 2013).
40. Riaz Ahmed, “TTP Condones Peshawar Church Attack,” Express Tribune
(Oct 5, 2013).