Pak’s religious preacher Khadim Hussain Rizvi died in a hospital after developing breathing difficulties yesterday. Rizvi spearheaded the blasphemous preaching against France after France’s Charlie Hebdo incident and also intimidated France of a nuclear attack. He was heading the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).
Khadim Hussain Rizvi was one of the influential Pakistani Islamic clerics, died in hospital in Lahore after contracting fever. His party members informed the media that the 54-year old Rizvi was suffering from fever since the beginning of the week.
Khadim Hussain Rizvi was the Rizvi, who is the founder of TLP, was committed to his ideology of blasphemy laws in Pakistan and had repeatedly protested against any act of amelioration to Pakistan’s ultra-conservative laws.
Under his tutelage, TLP has rendered many violent protests that flared up in the country in 2018 after Pak’s SC acquitted a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, of blasphemy charges.
Khadim Rizvi was also an ardent follower of 19th century Islamic theologian Imam Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, the founder of the Barelvi sect.
Rizvi was also at the forefront of recent protests in the country against France for the publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammed by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The Islamic cleric had also called for a boycott of French products and demanded Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to send back French ambassador from Islamabad.
During these protests, Rizvi had called Pakistan to launch nuclear attacks against France for its alleged act of ‘Islamophobia’ after the European country had taken a vow to fight the radical Islamic terrorism.
Khadim Hussain Rizvi had threatened the Netherlands with an ‘atom bomb’ attack
Not just threatening France, in 2018, the hardline cleric had also threatened the Netherlands with an ‘atom bomb’ after one of the country’s political group had organised a competition to draw Prophet Mohammad.
Warning Netherlands, Rizvi had said that if he were given “the atom bomb”, he would “wipe Holland off the face of this earth” if it allowed a competition of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad.
“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,” had said Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan founder.
Rizvi, who was born on June 22, 1966 in Attock district of Punjab, attained his Islamic education in subjects – Hifz and Tajweed from Jhelum madrassa. He later went on to attain further religious education – Dars-e-Nizami – from the Jamia Nizamia Rizvia institute in Lahore.
He founded the hardline Islamic organisation Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan on August 1, 2015, to start a movement against reformation of Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws.