KARACHI: Ulema urge Musharraf to fulfil commitments
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, June 11: Secretary General of the Wafaqul Madaris Al-Arabia Qari Hanif Jalandhari and head of the Binnoria University International Mufti Mohammad Naeem have called for the implementation of President Musharraf’s decisions and fulfilment of his commitments made to the ulema in their meeting on Feb 25, 2006.
They appealed to the president to order the authorities concerned to comply with his decisions.
Talking to a group of journalists, the Wafaq executives criticised the bureaucracy for not implementing the president’s decisions, saying that the rulers were pursuing double standards with regard to the affairs of madressahs.
They pointed out that one the one hand, a ban had been imposed on certain activities of madressahs and, one the other, a free hand was given to secular educational institutions.
They recalled that at the February 25 meeting between President Musharraf and ulema, the former had announced withdrawal of his decision of sending back foreign students of madressahs and had also held out the assurance that the already enrolled students would be allowed to complete their education and more students would be issued visa for pursuing education in Pakistan.
In this connection, the president had issued necessary instructions to the officials concerned and asked them to frame a policy within a month for issuing visa to new students.
However, they regretted, the officials were neither implementing the president’s decisions nor were they responding to ulema’s repeated requests in this regard.
They also criticised the federal minister for education for his intention to drop the subject of Islamiat from the curricula and include other religions in them.
They demanded dismissal of the minister, saying that he appeared totally ignorant about the history of Pakistan.
Slamming attempts by certain quarters to make the Hadood Ordinance an issue, they said there was nothing wrong in improving the ordinance but any modification in ‘Hadood Allah’ would be unacceptable. They asked the government to check the elements bent upon creating doubts about Hadood Allah in the name of ‘reforms’.
