Give me atom bomb and I’ll wipe out Holland says Islamist politician Khadim Hussain Rizvi in Pakistan

NEW DELHI: Khadim Hussain Rizvi, an Islamist group leader in Pakistan, who has fielded 152 candidates in the upcoming general elections in the country said, “If they give me the atom bomb I would remove Holland from the face of the earth before they can hold a competition of caricatures, I will wipe them off the face of this earth.” Rizvi is the chief of the Tehreek Labbaik Pakistan Ya Rasool Allah (TLP) and made these statement in a media interaction organised by the Karachi Press Club last week

Earlier in June, the Freedom Party of Dutch’s anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders said it will hold a competition of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad. News agency Reuters said Khadim was referring to this statement.

The TLP is famously recognised for protecting the blasphemy laws, which brought Islamabad to a standstill in November 2017. More than 2,000 TLP members and supporters staged a three week long sit at Faizabad.

Their agenda was a small change to the oath taken by parliamentary candidates. The candidates need to say “believe” rather than “solemnly swear by” the fact that the Prophet Muhammad is the the final prophet.

The government later called it as a “clerical error”.

This led to the resignation of Zahid Hamid, the law minister, who was declared as “blasphemer” by the TLP for changing the words.

“At least we had the minister removed and our demands they didn’t want to meet, we got that also fulfilled. The media should have praised us,” Rizvi spoke about the November’s sit-in at Faizabad.

“Only one senior army officer came to see me at the Faizabad sit-in and when I was talking to him, he was shaking before me,” said Rizvi who suggested that the Pakistan’s army trembles before his power and popularity.

“He was shivering before me and the poor thing came to me bowing and scraping. I won’t name the fellow, he’s a higher-up in the army,” he added.

Mumtaz Qadri, who assassinated the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province Salman Taseer, was sentenced to death late in 2011. Rizvi began making speeches criticising the verdict against Qadri. Qadri was a bodyguard to the Governor.

A report in Dawn, a Pakistani Newspaper, stated, “ Before November 2011, only a few people had paid attention to the wheelchair-bound cleric with a flowing white beard. His newly registered political party, Tehreek-i-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah, had certainly drawn the interest of political analysts and journalists after its unexpectedly strong showing in recent by-elections, but by and large, Maulana Khadim Hussain Rizvi remained a marginal figure in the public consciousness.”

The TLP can not win the elections as there are 342 seats in Pakistan’s National Assembly of which 272 are general and 70 are special seats.