Five years back, very few people had heard of Khadim Hussain Rizvi. He was a mullah with not much of a following in those days. Then, he was selected by the real rulers of the country to destabilize the previous regime. He paralyzed the twin cities in 2017 for many days, refusing to budge until his demands were met. He wanted, among other things, the resignation of the law minister, who he alleged had modified the oath to be taken by members of parliament in such a way that Ahmedis would benefit from it. The poor law minister resigned, after the establishment warned Nawaz Sharif's government not to take any action that would result in the loss of lives. If there was any doubt that he had the backing of the "selectors", it was removed when a video emerged, showing a senior military officer distributing a thousand rupees each to the demonstrators to go home.
After that his popularity soared, and his party managed to get two provincial assembly seats from Karachi (and narrowly losing another seat in the National Assembly).
About a week ago, he again embarked on a protest to force the government to cut off diplomatic relations with France (due to the publication of blasphemous cartoons in that country). Earlier, he had demanded that Pakistan drop one of its nuclear bombs on France, apparently not knowing that France's atomic bombs can pulverize Pakistan in a matter of seconds. Once, he had advised the government not to pay foreign loans until the donors agreed not to charge interest on them. He thought this would solve the country's problems.
Earlier, he had demanded the execution of Aasia Bibi, the falsely accused Christian woman, after she had been acquitted of blasphemy charges. Ironically, she is alive and well, not bitter at all against the country of her birth, despite being jailed for eight years before being set free by the apex court.
When news of his death spread, social media activists wondered if he hadn't been killed for saying last week that if his demands were not met, he would reveal the names of those who had instigated him to stage the protests. Of course, we shall never know the truth.
Yesterday, I had thought how lucky we'd be if the most unpopular man (IK) got killed in an air crash on his way back from Kabul. Instead, it was the mad mullah who expired, apparently from Covid, after he had probably infected many others in his sit-in last week. Of course, that hypocrite Imran Khan and his selector both condoled the passing away of their asset. It should be remembered that IK did not utter a word when a French-Pakistani woman was raped a few weeks back in Lahore. But then, he has always been a hypocrite.
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