The legacy of Lal Masjid is one punctured with notoriety-the entire world watched the gun battle between the army and the Masjid’s brigade, the exact collateral of which remains unclear to date. What we do know is that more than 100 militants and eight soldiers were killed when security forces stormed the mosque to take charge of a situation that was almost unanimously deemed impossible. The Masjid’s students launched a campaign in January to impose strict Islamic law, mounting a vigilante anti-vice campaign, kidnapping women they accused of prostitution and threatening shops selling Western films. Many in the liberal-leaning capital were justifiably concerned. Sixteen years after the Mosque was sieged, the radical spirit of the pro-Taliban stronghold lives on. The dead are hailed as martyrs. Militants and politicians alike use the standoff as a rallying cry and conspiracy theories float freely about how many women and children were killed in the siege. And Maulana Abdul Aziz, undeterred by the government’s attempts to contain him, has returned to the mosque, addressing a congregation of attentive listeners as if the siege never happened at all. The cleric was seen opening fire at a police team just yesterday, prompting authorities to book him under a variety of terrorism charges. One must wonder, why is militancy allowed to flourish in the heart of Pakistan’s capital. The mosque now painted a benign beige, still has a lot of political resonance for those who oppose the government. Indeed, the events of the brigade have since been used by thousands of militants across the country to garner support for what they believe is a US-backed Pakistani government. The bloody siege of Lal Masjid may have convinced those pulling the strings of power that the Taliban fighters that they had nurtured for so many years had grown too strong. But for many average people, militancy continues to be an attractive alternative to democracy, an experiment that has not produced the results it was expected to in Pakistan. Now, militants are autonomous-no one can control them anymore, least of all the state, as evidenced by Aziz’s open affronts against the government’s security apparatus. *