Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP)

Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP, 'Movement of Here-I-Am') consolidates the political wing of the Barelvi tradition — a South Asian Sunni Sufi-influenced school distinct from the Deobandi tradition that produced the Taliban. TLP's identity is built around uncompromising defence of Pakistan's blasphemy laws (Penal Code 295-A through 295-C, including the 1991 mandatory-death-penalty 295-C) and around veneration of Mumtaz Qadri, the police bodyguard who in 2011 assassinated Punjab governor Salman Taseer for advocating reform of those laws. Qadri's February 2016 execution catalysed the founding of TLP as an electoral and street-mobilisation vehicle. The party's repertoire has included multi-day blockade sit-ins of Faizabad Interchange (2017, 2018), nationwide road shutdowns over France's 2020 Mohammed cartoon controversy, and the April 2021 anti-French embassy demonstrations that triggered the federal Anti-Terrorism Act ban. In each cycle a pattern repeats: mobilisation peaks, government negotiates, leadership signs a covert agreement, ban or detentions are lifted, mobilisation pauses, the cycle resumes. The 2017 Faizabad agreement (signed by then-army-Brigadier Faiz Hameed) became a 2018 Supreme Court case. TLP's electoral performance has been substantial: 2.2 million votes in 2018 (5th nationally), 4.2 million in 2024 (3rd nationally) despite media restrictions. Dozens have died in TLP confrontations across 2016–2024 — police, party workers, and bystanders. International Crisis Group classifies TLP as a coercive-control political-religious vehicle whose religious authority is used to extract obedience to its leadership beyond its blasphemy-law focus.