February 24, 2006	Friday	Muharram 25, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 23: The ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML) on Thursday strongly reacted to the combined opposition’s boycott of the Brussels-bound parliamentary delegation and urged it to desist from attempts to politicise a purely religious issue.

The ruling party questioned the opposition’s sincerity as lovers of the Holy Prophet and asked it to indicate a single, concrete proposal that it had forwarded on which the government had failed to respond and act in order to satisfy the sentiments of the faithful over the publication of blasphemous cartoons in Europe.

The opposition was warned against converting the anti-cartoon campaign into an “anti-government or change of government” drive. In the event that it does, he said, the law will take its course and the law-breakers will be dealt with sternly.

In an open letter to the opposition, PML chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and secretary general Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed claimed that the government and the nation were united on this issue which was sacred to all Muslims.

Chaudhry Shujaat left the country last Tuesday and reached Washington on what party sources described as a private tour of the United States.

A special aide to the prime minister, Muhammad Ali Durrani, the party’s secretary for information and minister of state for overseas Pakistanis, Tariq Azeem Khan and complaint cell incharge Imtiaz Ranjha released the letter to the press at a news conference held at the party’s headquarters.

Mr Durrani said that if the opposition parties involved their followers in acts of violence in future it will be presumed that they were misusing a sacred cause for their vested interests.

Mr Azim said government was taking steps to initiate inter-faith dialogue to eliminate the threat of a so-called clash of civilizations and Europe versus Muslim world divide and put pressure on the Western countries to enforce specific laws to curb any future recurrence of the sacrilege which ignited worldwide anger.

When asked about the opposition’s reservations about the lame-duck way the government’s responded to the sensitive issue of cartoons, Mr Durrani avoided saying why General Musharraf had chosen to remain silent and did not utter a word against the cartoon’s publication when he visited Norway.

He said that Denmark could only have been pressured to seek apology had the government and opposition adopted a unified stand.

The PML leaders in their letter said the PML government had taken bold steps to represent the sentiments of the people of Pakistan, including calling back Pakistan’s ambassador to Denmark, inviting the OIC secretary general to Islamabad, requesting an early OIC foreign ministers’ meeting raising the issue at UN for legislation regarding Islamophobia and now an all parties parliamentary delegation was being dispatched to the European Union headquarters at Brussels for Europe-Islamic dialogue.

Lamenting the double standards of Denmark on this issue, the PML leadership said that unfortunately the opposition in Pakistan was also guilty of double standards since it was trying to gain political mileage out of the sacred cause by instigation violence.

Consequently, the letter says, the lives and property of poor, law-abiding citizens was put at risk due to the opposition’s negative attempt at politicisation.

The PML leadership regretted the way the opposition had treated “the most sacred of all issues” on a par with political issues concerning the president’s uniform, Kalabagh dam and LFO.

It asked the opposition to set aside its partisan political agenda of government-bashing and treat the sacrilegious cartoons with the seriousness and sincerity that it deserved.

Concluding, the PML leadership appealed to the opposition to join hands with the government in this collective cause and urged the opposition to demonstrate respect for “Namoos-i-Risalat” by participating in the all-parties delegation which was going to Brussels to project the people’s sentiments on this issue.

Since this issue concerns the entire Ummah, they also urged that the opposition should work with the government to chalk out a collective strategy for preserving, protecting and promoting the persona of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) “which was the essence of our Islamic faith”.