April 22, 2007	Sunday	Rabi-us-Sani 04, 1428

KARACHI, April 21: Police have started to draw up a list of the city’s religious seminaries whose students are capable of following in the footsteps of the stick-wielding youths of Jamia Hafsa and Lal Masjid in Islamabad.

Sources in the police department say the danger of religious or sectarian violence always loomed over the city where 914 seminaries imparted religious education to impressionable youths.

The city police chief, Azhar Ali Farooqui, on Saturday formed four different teams to liaise with religious scholars and administrations of seminaries in an attempt to avoid the kind of violence that has been in evidence in Islamabad for some time.

Each team, to be led by a DSP rank officer, will consist of four inspectors. Such teams will be assisted by the SHO of the area concerned.

The city police chief asked his force to establish better coordination not only with religious scholars but also with notables of the area to improve law and order and maintain peace and tranquility in the city.

According to statistics compiled by the police department, there are 914 religious seminaries in various localities in the city – 565 belong to the Deoband school of religious thought, 298 to Barelvi, 36 to Ahle Hadith and 14 to Shia.

Criticizing the way of imposition of shariah by the students of Lal Masjid and Hafsa mosque, a member of the Council of Islamic Ideology, Dr Manzoor Ahmed, said it was “Fasad fil ard”.

He was of the view that sharia had always existed in the country to a larger extent and the Council of Islamic Ideology was in the process of reviewing the Pakistan Penal Code and Criminal Penal Code for making them in accordance with shariah. He said that people wanting to impose shariah should take part in the general elections and if they were voted to power, they could then impose shariah. The way the students of Lal Masjid were imposing Islam could not be justified in any manner, he said, adding that they wanted to impose the government of their brand on the people of the country.

The Amir of the Jamat-i-Islami, Karachi, Dr Merajul Huda, said: “There may be a difference of opinion on the way the students of Lal Masjid and Masjid Hafsa are trying to impose Shariah, but their objective, we believe, is absolutely in the right direction.”

Dr Huda said that the girl students of Masjid Hafsa staged a protest against the demolition of seven mosques as the Islamabad administration had ordered the demolition of 37 mosques allegedly built on encroached land. He disputed the claim of the Islamabad administration saying that the mosques were built after the proper approval of the administration and there was no justification for demolition of the mosques.