|
|
|
| May 24, 2005 | Tuesday | Rabi-us-Sani 15, 1426 |
A lobby out to create ‘misunderstandings’: No Muslim should mention sect: Shujaat
LAHORE, May 23: Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Husain disclosed here on Monday that during a recent meeting with President Pervez Musharraf he had advised him that a law should be enacted requiring Muslims not to mention their sect on any official document and that the column seeking a Muslim to provide this information should be deleted.
The president, according to Chaudhry Shujaat, said that he would direct the law ministry to examine the matter.
The PML chief said the step would help stamp out the menace of sectarianism, which had adversely affected the national unity and divided the Muslims.
He said under the proposed legislation a Muslim would identify himself only as a Muslim, without any reference to his sect.
He said that an influential lobby in Islamabad was out to create misunderstandings between President Musharraf and the ruling PML and was consistently spreading rumours about the party being opposed to the president’s concept of enlightened moderation.
He said the same lobby was trying to create an impression that the PML was against any amendment to the Hudood Ordinance.
The PML, Chaudhry Shujaat said, fully supported the agenda of President Musharraf and the lobby bent upon creating a gulf between the two would not succeed in its designs.
Enlightened moderation, he said, was aimed at projecting abroad a soft image of Pakistan and it was in the country’s interest.
Chaudhry Shujaat said that elements alleging that the president wanted to promote vulgarity and obscenity in the name of enlightened moderation were doing so because of their ulterior motives. Gen Musharraf, he said, wanted to see Pakistan as an Islamic state, where there was no room for sectarianism.
He was asked: “You have been saying that the party will run the government and give all policies. But it is the president who is making policy statements on all important issues. Does it not belie your stand”?
Chaudhry Shujaat said the president was also part of the system and he was not banned from issuing statements. The party president and the prime minister, he said, were performing their respective duties.
When it was pointed out that the PML manifesto committed the party to get the Kashmir dispute resolved according to UN resolutions while President Musharraf was talking of other options, Chaudhry Shujaat said the PML manifesto was not a ‘sacred document’ which could never be amended.
He said the UN resolutions had been lying in the cold storage for some five decades while the PML manifesto had been written much later.
Chaudhry Shujaat said there was nothing wrong in the president spelling out various options which could be helpful in settling the 57- year-old dispute. He said in the prevailing situation it was more important that atrocities on Kashmiris and violation of their human rights were brought to an end. Objectives, the PML president said, were more important than the means adopted to achieve them.
In response to a question, Chaudhry Shujaat said nobody should be allowed to issue any statement on behalf of the president because that could create confusion.
So far, he said, the president had not stated that he would seek re-election in 2007, and when he would take a decision on the subject, the PML would work out its policy to support him.
Chaudhry Shujaat regretted that he had been misquoted by the ISPR in its May 16 summary prepared for President Musharraf.
He said he supported the decision of not sending Pakistani troops to Iraq and his views on the subject were the same as president’s.
The PML chief denied that President Musharraf had played any role in settling differences among leaders of the ruling party . He claimed that the PML leaders’ meeting with the president had been scheduled long ago and the ruling party’s internal matters were not on the agenda.
Chaudhry Shujaat said leaders of other parties could also meet the president.
|
|
|
|
