A senior figure within the banned Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party has received a substantial 35-year prison sentence from an anti-terrorism court in Lahore for openly inciting violence against Pakistan’s judiciary. Zaheerul Hassan Shah was convicted Monday for offering a financial bounty targeting then-Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa in 2023.
The case originated from a social media video that circulated widely last year, showing Shah promising 10 million rupees (approximately $36,000) to anyone who would execute the beheading of Chief Justice Isa. The conviction represents a significant judicial response to religious extremism within Pakistan’s political landscape.
Background context reveals the sentencing connects to broader tensions between Pakistan’s judiciary and hardline religious groups. Justice Isa had previously drawn criticism from these factions after granting bail to a member of the Ahmadi religious minority in a blasphemy case. The Ahmadi community, officially declared non-Muslim by Pakistan’s parliament in 1974, frequently faces persecution and violence from Sunni militant groups who consider them heretical.
This development occurs within a larger governmental crackdown on TLP, which was officially banned two months ago following deadly clashes between party supporters and police during pro-Gaza demonstrations. The party’s current leader, Saad Rizvi, remains missing since the October unrest, with police alleging he fled to Pakistan-administered Kashmir during the violent protests that erupted during a planned march from Lahore to Islamabad.