Due to excessive Islamization in Pakistani society, jihadi groups have been legitimized over the years, as seen recently in two Pakistani leaders' statements justifying suicide bombings in the context of Pakistani politics.
During March and early April of this year, a scandal, referred to in the Pakistani media as "Lettergate," broke in Pakistan. Then Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan accused the United States of plotting to unseat his government for pursuing an independent foreign policy amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. "Lettergate" refers to a diplomatic cable sent from the Pakistani Embassy in Washington D.C. supposedly relating to these events.[1]
Some lawmakers from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party defected to the opposition, triggering a no-trust vote against the government. Although the Khan government tried to throw out the no-trust vote, the Supreme Court of Pakistan intervened quickly to uphold the constitutional process, resulting in Khan being voted out of power on April 10 and the election of opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif as the country's new prime minister.
During the controversy, two politicians from Khan's PTI party said that they wanted to become suicide bombers to blow up the opposition politicians. The two politicians are: Ghulam Sarwar Khan, who was then Pakistani Minister for Civil Aviation, and Shehryar Khan Afridi, who is former minister of state for interior, former minister of state for states and frontier regions, and current chairman of the Parliamentary Special Committee on Kashmir. Both men are currently members of the National Assembly of Pakistan.
Ghulam Sarwar Khan, addressing a political rally on March 13, 2022, in the city of Rawalpindi, said: "Suicide is haram [forbidden in Islam]. I wish to become a suicide bomber so that, where all these enemies of the country and religion [Islam] sit, I could detonate myself to annihilate all of them. This is my thinking."[2]
Then Pakistani federal Minister for Civil Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan.
Shehryar Khan Afridi made a similar statement, saying he could have blown up parliament. Speaking in Pashtu at a corner meeting in the Pakistani city of Kohat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Shehryar Khan Afridi said: "I swear to God. If suicide was not haram [forbidden], I would have tied explosives to myself and blown up all the hypocrites in the parliament and eliminated the foundation of those who sell out the country [to America]."[3]
Shehryar Khan Afridi addressing a corner meeting in Kohat.
