MMA says govt trying to make country secular

KARACHI: Central leader of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Sahibzada Maulana Ans Shah Noorani has claimed days of the army rulers are numbered, as the countrywide ongoing campaign of the alliance will soon throw them out of power.

He was speaking at a protest demonstration organised by the MMA against declaration by President Musharraf to continue as Chief of the Army Staff, outside Karachi Press Club on Friday.

Prominent among others who spoke at the protest demonstration were MMA MNA Mohammed Husain Mehnati and Mohammed Aslam Mujahid. Carrying banners and placards, protesters raised slogans against army rulers and “ American intervention in the internal affairs of Pakistan.” Maulana Ans Norrani appealed to ulema to play their due role in guiding the people and said the army-led government was bent on making Pakistan a secular state. “Not only do the rulers want to eliminate ulema and seminaries and remove religion column from passport, but they are also ridiculing veil, beard and tenets of Islam.

They are doing all this at the behest of the US government,” he added.

He claimed on the one hand law and order was deteriorating in the country and, on the other, people were facing unemployment, price rise and poverty. He accused President Musharraf of violating the constitution and befooling the people, and said: “His remaining the Chief of the Army Staff is not only against the principles of democracy, but it also amounts to continuation of martial law.

He has dishonoured the pledge he made to the nation one year ago to shed his military uniform.” MNA Mohammed Husain Mehnati claimed the participation of a large number of people in today’s demonstration showed the people had rejected the army rule, violation of the constitution and American intervention in the internal affairs of the country.

He said the people of Pakistan held the armed forces in high esteem, “but they will not tolerate the humiliation of ulema and efforts by the government to lower the status of seminaries.” Mehnati vowed that the MMA would keep pursuing its struggle against “the unconstitutional and undemocratic regime of President Musharraf.” staff report

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