October 06, 2007	Saturday	Ramazan 23, 1428

LAHORE, Oct 5: The Jamaat-i-Islami has reacted to what it calls the ‘lame excuses’ being offered by the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam on retaining the NWFP Assembly.

Jamaat spokesperson Ameerul Azeem said here on Friday that the All Parties Democratic Movement had taken a firm decision that the JUI would send an advice to the NWFP governor to dissolve the provincial legislature and also its MPAs would resign on Oct 5 (Friday).

Mr Azeem said the JUI was now trying to shift the blame on the MMA president, Qazi Husain Ahmad, and some of its leaders had used derogatory language against the alliance chief. “This is unfortunate because the JUI is blaming the Jamaat and others to cover up its own failure in meeting the APDM decision”, he added.

The Jamaat spokesperson is of the view that Maulana Fazlur Rehman has now been trying to wriggle out of the pressure from within his party for the dissolution of the NWFP assembly and the resignations by its lawmakers. He says that Qazi Husain Ahmad had asked the Maulana on Sept 29 that the APDM decision must be implemented and the JUI chief had categorically held out an assurance to the MMA president that his party would meet the deadline. “Now he (Maulana Fazlur Rehman) says that no firm decision was taken by the APDM”, he said and added that the Maulana’s stance was misleading.

Meanwhile, Jamaat secretary-general Syed Munawar Hasan told Dawn on Friday that the APDM parties, including the MPAs belonging to the Jamaat, the PML-N and the ANP had resigned under the decision taken by the APDM. But the JUI had tried to back out of the commitment and had now been using a language against the MMA president which was in ‘bad taste’.

ARRESTS: Ameerul Azeem also said that the police had arrested 16 JI workers from Lahore alone ahead of the APDM’s call for a shutter-down strike on Saturday. According to him, four of the detained workers were subjected to torture by Ghalib Market police SHO Aamer Saleem.