March 06, 2007	Tuesday	Safar 16, 1428

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SWAT, March 5: A cleric, who is at the centre of various controversies here, has said that laws in Pakistan are not in consonance with Islamic teachings and despite registration of cases against him he will continue to preach Islam.

The cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, told Dawn on Monday at his native area of Imam Dehri that the government had not kept its word of enforcing Shariat in the Malakand region and therefore they had to re-launch their movement for achievement of that goal.

An FIR was registered against the cleric and hundreds of his supporters by the Swat police on March 2 after the police failed to arrest him owing to stiff resistance from his supporters.

“Running of the radio station is not illegal as Swat is a tax-free zone and there is no law here to register radio stations,” Maulana Fazlullah said, adding that he had not been committing any illegal act as preaching of Islam was not illegal under any law.

He said that seeking education by women was against Shariat and the best institute of learning for women was their home. “Jews and Christians can never be our friends and their inventions are also against Shariat. They could never be our well-wishers,” the cleric said.

“Reliance on polio vaccine or any other anti-epidemic medicine is also against Shariat as in Islam dying of an epidemic is equivalent to martyrdom,” said Maulana Fazl, who enjoys support of thousands of people in the village as well as other parts of the Swat district.

He dispelled the impression that he had instigated the general public to put to torch television sets, CDs and cassettes, stating that he had only made them aware about these ills and it was out of their love for Islam that they had destroyed all the satanic items.

In his area women had sold out their jewellery to generate funds for purchasing video CDs and cassettes, television sets and VCRs which were later set on fire on different occasions.

About suicide bombings, he said that suicide was prohibited in Islam and suicide attacks could only be justified when the attackers are inferior to their enemy in strength and number.

The cleric is the son-in-law of the imprisoned chief of Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat Muhammadi, Maulana Sufi Mohammad, who was arrested along with scores of other members on the Pakistan-Afghan border after the US attack on Afghanistan and remained in the Dera Ismail Khan prison for 17 months.

He said that during his imprisonment he studied more books about Islam which further clarified his views.

Presently, there were about 10 cases pending against him and in some of them he had been declared proclaimed offender.

Maulana Fazl stated that he was ready to face trials in different courts, but he could not restrain thousands of his supporters from accompanying him. He added that hundreds of his supporters used to ride horses, the administration should provide appropriate space for them in the courts.

People of the area have donated 400 kanals of land for a seminary, Eidgah and mosque, and millions of rupees for construction work.