ISLAMABAD — Pakistani police opened a new investigation Monday into former president Pervez Musharraf’s role in the death of a radical cleric killed during a raid of a mosque in downtown Islamabad, police said.
Police are investigating Musharraf’s role in the operation against the hard-line Red Mosque in 2007 that killed nearly 100 people, investigator Mohammad Yousuf said.
Musharraf ordered the raid in response to increasing complaints against the mosque. Students there had begun raiding massage parlors, shops selling movies, and other places they deemed as centers of vulgarity. The mosque raid set off widespread counterattacks by militants that added to Musharraf’s unpopularity.
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Musharraf took power in a 1999 coup but was forced to step down in 2008 and later left the country.
After four years in self-exile, he returned to Pakistan in March but has faced a string of legal problems since. The case Monday stems from a complaint filed by the son of Abdur Rasheed Ghazi, the mosque’s cleric who died in the siege.