29 November 2004	Monday	16 Shawwal 1425

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KARACHI, Nov 28: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) has warned that if the rulers failed to overcome price hike, rising unemployment and lawlessness, the situation, coupled with the sense of deprivation in masses, might lead to a turmoil that might sweep them away, and "neither uniform, nor sherwani would be safe''.

The MMA warning came at its first public rally, which kicked off the alliance's campaign against Gen Musharraf, at Nishtar Park on Sunday. The campaign is aimed at mobilizing public opinion against Gen Musharraf's reneging from his commitment to relinquish the office of army chief by Dec 31 this year. The MMA is also agitating against the government's policies on various national and international issues.

The rally, which started at 3:45pm and continued till about 8:30pm, was addressed by, besides Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, more than a dozen opposition leaders, including Mamnoon Hussain, Basharat Mirza, Rashid Rabbani, Zain Ansari, Sahibzada Abul Khair Zubair, Hafiz Hussain Ahmad, Hafiz Mohammad Taqi, Maulana Omar Sadiq, Maulana Khan Mohammad Rabbani, Mohammad Hussain Mehanti and Dr Khalid Mehmood Soomro.

Several resolutions were adopted at the meeting. One of the resolutions stated that although the country was rich in natural resources and had skilled and trained manpower, the number of people living below poverty line was going up due to the defective policies, incompetence, mismanagement, corruption, besides the ruling clique's lust for power.

The resolution said that growing foreign exchange reserves were meaningless if they did not provide any relief to common man. Another resolution deplored raids on seminaries and the military operation in Wana.

It also expressed concern over attacks and bomb blasts targeted at places of worship, as well as target killings which had claimed lives of a large number of innocent people.

Police and other law-enforcement agencies have failed to arrest those involved in the blasts and assassination of ulema. Acting upon the instructions of their foreign masters, the rulers had resorted to launching military operation in Wana where scores of Muslims were killed, according to the resolution. It demanded an immediate halt to the operation and raids on religious schools. It called for an end to crackdown on ulema and students of religious schools.

Through yet another resolution, the rally condemned the attempts to secularize educational syllabus. Describing the attempt as 'contrary to the country's culture, history and ideology', the resolution warned that the policies and tactics pursued by the Musharraf government were inviting anger of the masses.

The MMA rally declared that the Muslim population of Pakistan would foil the rulers' conspiracy to turn the country into a secular state. A resolution adopted at the rally said that the people were ready to make any sacrifice to prevent any harm coming to their religion and belief.

The resolution also deplored the move to drop the column of 'religion' from the newly-introduced machine-readable passports, and termed it 'a conspiracy'. It demanded immediate restoration of the column.

It also criticized the government for ignoring the US atrocities on Muslim countries; brutal bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan, where thousands of innocent men, women, children, youth and elderly people were killed and injured; and genocide of Palestinians by Zionist forces.

The resolution said that the US was patronizing Israel which had unleashed a reign of terror in the Middle East. It regretted that Pakistan government had failed to even lodge a protest over all these atrocities and tyranny.

The meeting expressed its indignation and anger over the 'conspiracy' to divide Kashmir, and warned the rulers that no formula detrimental to the wishes of Kashmiri people would be acceptable to the people of Pakistan as such a formula would not solve the issue.