Abdul Aziz Ghazi Politician
Muhammad Abdul Aziz (Urdu: محمد عبد العزيز) is a Pakistani cleric and Khateeb (prayer leader) in the central mosque of Islamabad known as Lal Masjid, which was the site of a siege in 2007 with the Pakistani army. On 4 July 2007, he was arrested by the Pakistani police as he was trying to escape the complex while dressed in a burqa (veil)". According to his account, he was forced by authorities to rewear the burqa. Aziz was released from custody by the Pakistani supreme court in 2009 and acquitted in 2013.According to Shah Abdul Aziz, the justification for his cross-dressing escape is that, "He was deceived. He was called by a senior official of an intelligence agency with whom he has been in touch for long. Since this man could not enter into the mosque to meet him (to save his cover and identity) he asked Maulana Aziz to come down to Aabpara police station, situated on a walking distance from the mosque and asked him to wear a burqa to avoid identification.The mosque he leads operates the Jamia Hafsa madrassas and has a militia. Its followers have engaged in political protests and have been involved in vandalism, violence, kidnapping, and arson. In 2014, Aziz named a library at one of the mosque's seminaries after Osama Bin Laden.