26 September 2004	Sunday	10 Shaban 1425

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QUETTA, Sept 25: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed on Saturday said that the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy and the MMA would form a joint committee that would determine strategy to launch struggle against President Pervez Musharraf's likely move to stay in uniform beyond Dec 31, 2004.

Briefing newsmen after a meeting of the MMA's supreme council here, Qazi Hussain Ahmed said he had met PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif in Jeddah a few days back, adding they had agreed that the ARD and the MMA should cooperate with each other to launch an anti-Musharraf movement.

He said the MMA supreme council had formed a six-member committee that would contact political parties on the uniform issue. The committee, headed by Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, would comprise Liaquat Baloch, Gul Rehman, Dr Abul Khair Mohammed Zubair, Allama Ramazan Tauqi and Maulana Abdul Aziz.

The MMA, he announced, would organize rallies in Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi, Quetta and other big cities to force General Musharraf to give up his army post by Dec 31. He said that if the president failed to fulfil his commitment by that date then a protest movement would be launched against him.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed, who is also chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami, declared that the MMA would not allow the passage of a resolution in favour of President Musharraf from the Balochistan Assembly.

The opposition leader in the National Assembly, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, said on the occasion that the supreme council had rejected the resolutions adopted by the Punjab and Sindh assemblies on the uniform issue.

He criticized the government for raids on various seminaries and said the action was aimed at disgracing the religious institutions. He said the MMA would not allow such actions against the seminaries.

He said the meeting had demanded an end to the military operation in Waziristan and asked the government to resolve the matter peacefully.

The meeting condemned the terrorist attack in which four people had been killed in Quetta on Saturday and stressed the need for unity among people.