2 April, 2005	Saturday	22 Safar 1426

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LAHORE, April 1: MMA President Qazi Hussain Ahmad has condemned the “arrest of over 3,000 activists” of the alliance’s component parties and said despite the coercive measures by the government; people would observe a complete shutterdown and wheeljam strike on Saturday. Speaking at a news conference here at the Lahore Press Club on Friday, he said the arrests had been made mainly in the Punjab and Sindh. The strike would be peaceful and the responsibility of any disturbance would lay entirely with the government, he said.

He said the MMA would announce its next line of action on April 6. Its campaign against the government would continue till the return of the army to its basic duty of defending the country, he said.

The JI Amir was accompanied by his party Secretary-General Syed Munawwar Hasan, Punjab Amir Liaquat Baloch and Lahore Amir Hafiz Salman Butt. The latter two are also the Punjab and Lahore presidents of the MMA.

“Strikes are the peaceful and democratic way of lodging protest. They are also the best tool of recording protest by the helpless people. And the government is using coercive methods to rob them of this right. But despite this, there would be a complete strike all over the country,” he said.

Qazi said there was nothing illegal in observing strikes in a peaceful manner. The strike on Saturday would be peaceful like all the long marches and rallies of the MMA, he said.

He condemned what he said the arrest of thousands of leaders and workers of the MMA parties. In its attempt to block the strike the government was using indecent methods like violating the sanctity of “chadar and chardiwari.”

To prove his allegation, Qazi said police besieged the Karachi residence of Syed Munawwar Hassan during the early hours of Friday, and arrested Maulana Ans Noorani after barging into his residence.

He said those arrested in Karachi included MNAs Muhammad Hussain Mehanti and Laeeq Ahmad Khan, MPAs Hameedullah and Younas Barai. In Karachi alone 600 places were raided to arrest the MMA activists. Police were being assisted by MQM activists, he alleged.

He gave figures of people arrested from various cities in Punjab like Lahore and Rawalpindi, and said they included district amirs of Jamaat-i-Islami and country president of Shabab-i-Milli.

“Police were raiding homes, madaris and offices of the MMA activists. This indicated that the strike has unnerved the government. But we appeal to the people to fulfil their national duty by observing the strike,” Qazi said.

He said the MMA had given the call for the strike to press for the demands of the people, hoping it would bring about a better change for them. Replying to questions, Qazi said the MMA wanted President Musharraf to leave his presidential office. The senate chairman should replace Gen Musharraf and the parliament elect a new civilian president besides restoring the constitution to its post October 11, 1999 position and holding the next general elections.

He said the PML-N was supporting the MMA strike and the PPP too had given a positive response.

Condemns Najafi’s Murder: Earlier, Qazi Hussain Ahmad condemned the murder of Jamia Almuntazar’s vice-principal Ghulam Hussain Najfi and urged the government to unearth the real hands behind such incidents. This was not a sectarian killing as the MMA had established that there was no sectarianism in the country, he said.

He said anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan elements were behind the killing whom the government must expose. An attempt had been made to create a chaos in the country through such a target killing, he said.