Rushdie 18 years ago

(The story behind a protest against 'Satanic Verses' that turned horribly wrong)


On February 12, 1989, a large number of protestors gathered in the heart of Islamabad under the banner of Tahafaz-i-Namoos-i-Risalat to condemn the publishing of 'Satanic Verses' written by Salman Rushdie in the United Kingdom

When the protest came to an end, seven people had lost their lives, thirty more had sustained injuries and forty four police personnel were injured in clashes with the protestors.

When the incident took place the Benazir government was just around two months old. The procession was led by Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, Maulana Abdul Sattar Niazi, Maulana Kausar Niazi and Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

A judicial enquiry commission was formed under Justice Ijaz Nisar who at that time was a Lahore High Court judge to look into the facts of the matter which then published its report in August 1990.

During the enquiry these leaders pleaded that the People's Party government had an ulterior motive of crushing the ulema on their very first appearance in Islamabad so that the greatest hurdle in the way of the secular government was removed or at least weakened.

The district administration justified its action in self-defence, pleading that the armed protestors were highly disorganised with no single leader in command and the protestors looted a petrol pump and collected petrol from there. The administration estimated the size of the crowd between 30,000 to 40,000.

The enquiry commission noted that confusion seems to have been caused by the advertisement placed in the press by Tehrik-e-Tahafaz-i-Risalat and the demonstrators were not informed about the arrangements settled with the administration that they were to halt at a barrier to be placed at a distance from American centre, that only leaders would proceed onwards to hand over the protest note. On the other hand they were intimated by the advertisement that the protest rally was to be staged in front of the American Centre

"It was strange that the infamous book was published in the UK, the US did not have any plan to publish it, still the organisers chose to protest in front of the USIS building in Blue Area instead of going to the British High Commission office," recalled Abdul Hameed Alvi, the then media advisor to USIS while talking to TNS.

Many of the witnesses that came before the commission agreed with the suggestion that America had nothing to do with the publication of 'Satanic Verses', neither was Salman Rushdie a resident of America, nor was the book published from there.

Identifying what went wrong, the the 160 paged commission report found that when the protestors crossed the barrier a scuffle ensued between the police and the protestors. The protestors pelted stones at the police that resorted to firing tear gas but the direction of the wind changed and the tear gas smoke instead struck the police. Meanwhile, the jeep carrying the leaders arrived at the scene where it was hit by a stray tear gas shell. Brick-batting was also going on. As a result those in the jeep were injured.

"It would therefore be incorrect to presume that the jeep of the leaders was made a target. The gas shells fired on the protesters encircling the jeep accidentally hit the occupants. Finding the leaders hurt the protesters became furious. They advanced towards the police in a state of intense anger, pelting stones on them. Seeing them getting violent, the police receded towards the depression by the side of the American Centre. Some of the protesters taking advantage of police drifting away, scaled over the walls of the American Centre, smashed its window-panes, damaged the dish antenna and destroyed the main entrance. Two or three of them climbed up the roof of the American Centre and pulled down the American flag. The demonstrators who were present on the eastern side of the American Centre also joined them and resorted to brick batting."

The report observed that the demonstrators tried to set a vehicle in the American centre on fire. A tent of the security guards and a security post was also burnt. As none of the leader was around, there was nobody to impart any instruction to the crowd.

Getting reinforcement, the police appeared on the scene again to prevent the situation from becoming worse. It resorted to firing that resulted in deaths.

"If the situation called for police firing, there was hardly any justification in aiming at the protestors directly. The police could have directed its shots towards the legs instead of vital parts of their bodies, the firing in that case could have merely incapacitated them rather than cause their instantaneous death," noted Justice Ijaz Nisar

Why the protestors chose to go to American Centre could be explained by the fact that a large number of international media was present in Islamabad to cover an event relating to formation of a future government in Afghanistan. Rushdie was not an American citizen nor the United States published the book but the anti-Rushdie protest turned into an anti-west or an anti-America protest, a fact attested by the then prime minister Benazir Bhutto in a press conference on her return from China soon after the incident.

The judicial enquiry commission in its report in August 1990 recommended the government to pay a minimum of Rs 100,000 as compensation to the legal heirs of each of the dead, Rs 50,000 to those with fire arm injuries and Rs 25,000 each to the persons having other injuries. Of the seven dead only three were from Rawalpindi. Rest of them belonged to the adjoining cities of Jhelum, Attock, Mansehra etc.

The father of one of the persons killed, Zafar Iqbal Sultan Muhammad Mirza, who was then principal of Qandeel Institution for the Blind and Deaf in Rawalpindi, told TNS that his son was not religious. "He had taken intermediate examination from Government College and was taking tests to join army. On the fateful day he along with his friends went to the protest and got killed," Mirza recalled. "The amount of compensation was not enough because the amount spent to seek justice was much more."