HYDERABAD: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has once again told the establishment to keep focusing its energy on the country’s defence, instead of gimmicks in politics.

“Don’t force us to stage a long march to Islamabad,” he said in a hard-hitting speech at the party’s public meeting titled ‘Difa-i-Watan Aur Israel Muradabad Million March’ held on Rajputana Road in Hyderabad on Sunday night.

Alluding to army, he said: “If you perform for Pakistan’s defence, we will make you crown on our heads; but if you forcibly sit on our heads, then we will not let you to do so”.

He was highly critical of, in his words, “militants’ rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa”, and said on the one hand, army defeated India in just four hours by destroying its air defence system but, on the other, it [Pak army] could not control militant groups despite passage of 40 years. “This means there is something fishy,” he remarked.

The Maulana said that his party was holding such gatherings for peace. “The JUI-F supported army in recent Pakistan-India conflict regardless of its known position on political issues because it was a question of our country’s survival,” he said.

He said JUI-F rejected the “establishment-sponsored rigging in polls, besides its role in politics”.

He said: “A party doesn’t backtrack on its political viewpoint”.

According to Maulana Fazlur Rethman, establishment is indeed a powerful entity, but it is subservient to someone; and if people have the right to rule then no one could change their decision. “And when anyone does so, he is the biggest culprit”.

He said Pakistan today did not have a true people’s government. No good could be expected from the rulers. He alleged that governments of Sindh, Balochistan and KP were either sold or bought; and what to talk of Punjab. Writ of government is not seen in KP and Balochistan; armed men rule KP’s roads. One should think how to extricate the country out of this situation, he said.

‘Netanyahu is war criminal’

The JUI-F chief said that Israel had become ‘cancer’ for Arab world. Despite British backing in 1948, Israel could not attain supremacy in Muslim world. Soon after creation of Pakistan, Israel declared a foreign policy which was aimed at doing away with the newly born country. Israel attacked Arab world in 1967 and usurped West Bank and Golan Heights with US and Europe patronage.

He said Israel committed genocide of Lebanese in 1982. He pointed out that around 60,000 more women, children and elderly people had been killed in the mayhem that had been continuing for about 18 months in Palestine.

He observed that the UN had become meaningless. “Netanyahu is a war criminal, the International Court of Justice has already passed a judgement against him and ordered his arrest, yet he is roaming about with complete impunity,” said the Maulana.

He said that the JUI-F stood with Iran in its conflict with Israel.

Sindh JUI-F Emir Abdul Qayyum Halejvi announced that the party would hold a ‘peace Jirga’ in Sindh on June 30 and would lay siege to CM House in Karachi on July 17 on the issue of lawlessness.

Other party leaders including Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Hyderi, Khawaja Khalil Ahmed, Asad Mehmood, Rashid Mahmood Soomro and Taj Mohammad Nahiyoon also spoke.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2025