KARACHI, Dec 3: The Jamaat-i-Islami has warned that the nation will lay siege to the parliament and stage a sit-in in Islamabad if a bill was passed to amend the existing blasphemy law. Addressing a Namoos-i-Risalat rally here on Friday, the JI city chief, Muhammad Hussain Mehanti, said that no one was allowed to “mutilate the Islamic identity” of the country.

Participants of the rally were holding banners and placards inscribed with demands that include rescinding of the national assembly membership of Pakistan People’s Party lawmaker Sherry Rehman for “subversion of the constitution of Pakistan” etc.

Mufti Usman Yar Khan of the Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI-S), Shabbir Abu Talib of the Jamiat Ulema Pakistan and others spoke at the rally.They condemned what they viewed as a likely move to grant presidential pardon to a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, who has been convicted of blasphemy, and said that President Asif Ali Zardari or Punjab Governor Salman Taseer had no right to reduce her sentence.

They called upon Ms Rehman to withdraw the bill she had submitted in the national assembly for amendments in the blasphemy law “if she had any love for the Prophet (peace be upon him)”.