The sad incident of Red Mosque took place in the same dates of previous year, and it is one year old now. Some circles of the society are organizing the anniversary of the incident these days. I have noticed that last year when this incident was occurred, and this year when some groups are organizing the anniversary, few of them are trying to equate the incident of Lal Masjid with the incident of Karbala. Some of them are our TV anchors, columnists and intellectuals. I am absolutely unable to understand that while equating Lal Masjid with Karbala, how easily these people ignore the clear and wide differences between these two incidents ? I consider this act of ignoring the facts as criminal attempt of distorting the history. So i thought to compile a few differences between these incidents to show that right from initial stages of happenings, how different were the two incidents actually ?

Without going into minute details of Karbala, I will only discuss the very main and basic happenings of Karbala to highlight the key differences.

• When Imam Hussain (a.s.) felt that the forces of Yazeed are trying to assassinate him in the premises of Khana-e-Kaba during Hajj, he left Mecca to avoid any blood-shed on the Holy Land. While on the other hand, the administration of Red Mosque used the mosque as a shield.

• At any stage of the struggle, Imam Hussain (a.s.) did not try to take the law and order of the country in his own hands. Whereas in case of Lal Masjid, the administration of mosque not only took-over the control of nearby areas, they also took the personnel of police into their own custody many times. Apart from that, they stormed a nearby office of a ministry as well.

• Imam (a.s.) didnt use the women and children with him as shield. Before the evening of 10th Muharram, not a single woman of his family came out of the house. It was only after the martyrdom of Imam and his companions that Hazrat Zainab (a.s.), the sister of Imam, took the charge to protect the family and to spread the message of Imam. But in case of Lal Masjid, we observed that every now and then the administration of mosque advanced the female students of Jamia Hafsa, while giving long sticks in their hands for threatening purpose. Moreover, during the final days of the incident/operation of Lal Masjid, the militants also used the Jamia Hafsa (which was a place specific for the education of female students) to attack on the law enforcement agencies. When the administration of Mosque itself did not have any respect of their own females, how could they expect others to restrain ?

• In the incident of Karbala, Imam (a.s.) and all of his companions went right in the middle of the battle field, one by one, to fight with the enemy. Not a single companion of Imam Hussain tried to hide or escape from the battle field. When at fight, no one tried to hide himself in any shelter. On the other hand, the militants of Lal Masjid were playing hide and seek with the law enforcement agencies. At one time they used the minarets of the mosque to open the fire on security agencies, and at the other times they used other areas of mosque or Jamia Hafsa to attack. And in final stages, the class-rooms of Jamia-Hafsa became the battle-ground as the militants took refuge in class-rooms.

• Imam (a.s.) did not have any plan to fight with Yazeed's force. That is why he did not make any efforts to store the weapons. The irony was that, some of the companions of Imam (a.s.) went in the battle field only with a mere stick in hand. They did not even have a single sword available. On the other side we saw that the administration of Lal Masjid used automatic weapons against the opponents, for several days. They were storing the ammunition since long. And as the incident proceeded, the administration of Mosque announced that they had enough weapons to fight for a month. It is really strange that the administration of Lal Masjid had converted the mosque into an ordnance depot.

• In Karbala, after the martyrdom of all of his companions, in last Imam Hussain himself fought in the battle field till martyrdom. On the other side, Molana Abd-ul-Aziz was the first man who tried to flee in a Burqa (veil).

However, it is undoubtedly true that whatever happened in the Red Mosque was gruesome. It was certainly amongst the saddest of incidents the nation faced. Precious lives were lost at both sides. The purpose of writing above points is not to prove that one of the two sides (Lal Masjid or Government) was correct, and the other side was wrong. It was only an attempt to set the record straight. Any incident with bloody end, doesn't mean that it can be equated with Karbala.

Use of force is never a good option, and should be avoided to the maximum extent.