KARACHI: Religious parties mainly led by Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) held countrywide protests on Friday against the US drone strike that killed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, calling it a violation of the country’s sovereignty and vowing to evolve a strategy against the growing hostility of the world superpower.
The major show of street power was witnessed in Sialkot where Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed addressed hundreds of party activists and supporters after Friday prayers at the Allama Iqbal Collage ground.
He said the United States and its allied forces were actually targeting Pakistan’s atomic programme and such attacks were part of their global design to deprive the country of its nuclear weapons.
“Our nuclear programme has never been accepted by India and western forces and now the development of CPEC [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor] has further worried them. They never want Pakistan to strengthen its defence and develop its economy. They conduct such attacks only to prove their propaganda that Pakistan is no more a safe place to keep nukes,” he said.
Hafiz Saeed said senior leaders of religious parties were gathering in Islamabad on May 30 to chalk out a strategy against the US aggression as well as the role they could play in defending the country’s sovereignty in these challenging hours.
Jamaatud Dawa, which has been globally banned and is on the watch list of the Pakistan government, also held a protest demonstration outside its Choburjee headquarters in Lahore.
In Karachi, dozens of JuD workers took out a rally on Khalid Bin Waleed Road after Friday prayers. It was addressed by the party’s Karachi chief Dr Muzammil Hashmi.
In Peshawar, JuD held funeral prayers in absentia for Mullah Mansour at its headquarters in the cantonment’s Saddar area. The party also held a demonstration where its activists burnt the American flag and chanted anti-US slogans.
Addressing the rally, JuD leaders Hafiz Samiullah and Haji Mohammad Iqbal and Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat’s Peshawar chief Maulana Ismail said the US was trying to cover up its failures in Afghanistan and the drone strike was part of a malicious campaign to defame Pakistan.
Jamaat-i-Islami held rallies in Mansoora and Gulshan Ravi areas of Lahore.
Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2016
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.