PESHAWAR, Jan 28: Speakers at a seminar on the proposed Hisba Act have advised the NWFP government to refrain from raising a religious militia and setting up a parallel judiciary in the name of Islamisation of the criminal justice system.

The seminar, entitled 'Hisba Act: Expectations and Apprehensions', was organised by Joint Action Committee, a conglomerate of civil society groups, here at the Archives Hall on Wednesday.

Mufti Ghulamur Rehman, chairman of the provincial Shariat Council, endorsed the contents of the proposed Act. The passage of the Hisba Act would help the MMA government in the early execution of Islamic laws, he added.

The MMA government and the Shariat Council, he said, were ready to incorporate reform-oriented suggestions by scholars into the Act. "We want to make it more fair, clear and practicable. The MMA is sincere in its efforts at Islamization of the socio-economic system. The MMA will not back out of its stance", Mufti Sahib said.

He said the opposition to the Hisba Act was "sentimental, imaginary and political." Dr Farooq said he had been a well-wisher of the MMA, but it had failed to make positive legislation so for. He said the MMA tried to politicize Islam rather than Islamizing politics, and "this had been its main dilemma since coming to power."

He asked the MMA to implement laws already in vogue which deal with different crimes instead of making new, but similar, ones. He said there was a great difference between universal truths and the Islamic Shariat. Lying was considered bad in every religion, so it could not be brought into the realm of Shariat, he claimed.

He advised the government to root out the causes of crimes first and then implement the Hudood laws, "otherwise society would plunge into anarchy." He said the MMA had planned to enforce Shariat on poverty-stricken people of the NWFP where 45 per cent of the total population lived below poverty line.

Raaziya Jafari said the MMA had "hoodwinked the general public" in the name of Islam. "The clergy doesn't even know the ABC of economy and other rapidly changing social realities. They are using delaying tactics to prolong their rule," she added.

The MMA wanted to keep the exploitative social system intact in the garb of religious laws so that women enjoyed no rights as free and independent human beings, she added.

She said the MMA, which boasted of Muslim Ummah's unity, had been reduced into a two-party (Jamiat-Jamaat) alliance. The Hisba Act vested draconian powers in the person of provincial and district ombudsmen, whose decision could not be challenged in any court of law, she observed.

Others who spoke at the seminar were Gulmina Bilal of the Liberal Forum Pakistan, Sher Afgan advocate, Shakeel Waheedullah of the Sarhad NGOs Itehad, Aftab Alam advocate, Iftikhar Durrani advocate, Nazim of Hayatabad union council, Sirajul Haq, and Moazam Butt advocate.