People's Voice condemns the bloody army assault on the Lal Masjid complex in Islamabad, Pakistan, ordered by the Musharraf regime in the pre-dawn hours of 10 July.

When the assault was ordered, hundreds of men, women and children were trapped inside the complex. Many of them were young boys and girls studying in the seminary attached to the masjid. There is no count of the number of those who died or were wounded in the army operation.

In the days leading up to this carefully planned operation, a veritable reign of terror was unleashed by the state. In the heart of Islamabad, the capital, rolls of barbed wire were used to isolate the entire mosque complex from frantic people who had gathered outside. Hordes of heavily armed troops were brought in, and helicopter gunships circled continually overhead.

The purpose behind this massive display of state terrorism is clear. The Musharraf regime wants to show that it is capable of crushing with brute force any opposition, no matter what the cost in terms of devastation or lives lost. It did the same thing when it bombed insurgents in Balochistan, killing among others the well known leader Sardar Akbar Khan Bugti. It did the same thing when it sent 80,000 troops into Waziristan to crush those who were coming in the way of the operations of the US-led invading forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. In recent years, the brave people of Pakistan have been in the forefront of the world wide opposition to the aggressive activities of US imperialism and its allies, including the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the attacks on the Palestinian people, and the various provocations against people of the Muslim faith. Their anger has been directed both against US imperialism and against the Musharraf regime that has been bending over backwards to help the US imperialists. It is not a coincidence that the storming of the Lal Masjid met with the immediate approval of the US imperialists.

Just like the imperialists in the West, the Musharraf regime has for some time been trying to discredit all those in Pakistan who are fighting him as 'religious fundamentalists' and 'terrorists'. By storming and destroying a masjid and madrasa, and killing clerics and persons gathered inside it, it is projecting itself as fighting religious extremism, and bolstering the imperialist propaganda against 'Islamic fundamentalism'.

To the Indian working class and people, the storming of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad is eerily reminiscent of the state terrorism here at the time of “Operation Bluestar” in 1984, when Indira Gandhi ordered the storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar in the name of “fighting religious extremism” and “terrorism”. Then too, hundreds of people were mowed down to bolster the State and its image as the defender of the “unity and integrity” of the country. Far from putting an end to violence, that operation led to even more tension and bloodshed.

In the coming days, the people of Pakistan need to step up their struggles against the Musharraf regime and its US imperialist backers who have shown their true fascist fangs.