KARACHI, Dec 3: Participants of a rally organised on Sunday by the Markazi Jamaat Ahle Sunnat, Karachi chapter, reiterated their resolve to resist any move to make the newly-passed bill on women protection a part of the Constitution.

The rally was addressed by President of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan Shah Anas Noorani, chief of the Sunni Tehrik Serwat Ejaz Qadri, Sindh chief of the Markazi Jamaat Ahle Sunnat Mufti Jan Mohammad Naeemi and JUP leader Shabbir Abu Talib, besides several other leaders.

Raising slogans against the introduction of the bill, the participants marched from M. A. Jinnah Road up to the Jamia Masjid Qassaban at Jamia Cloth Market. They were holding placards and banners inscribed with slogans against the bill and the government. Some of them were also holding portraits of Allama Shah Ahmed Noorani, Maulana Saleem Qadri, Maulana Abbas Qadri and other Ahle Sunnat leaders.

Addressing the protesters, the speakers said that Ahle Sunnat leaders from various parties had offered great sacrifices for Pakistan and played a key role in giving the country a Constitution. “We will not allow anyone to trample over the 1973 Constitution or make amendment to it in a way to change its Islamic basis,” they said.

Serwat Ejaz Qadri said the women protection bill was against the tenets of Islam and the Holy Quran, as well as Shariah. It got through the parliament because ulema of Ahle Sunnat were not there in the house, they claimed. They said that all ulema belonging to the Ahle Sunnat would have to unite for the protection Islam, the Holy Quran and Islamic values.

Mufti Jan Mohammad Naeemi said that his party would not hesitate to offer any sacrifice for the cause.

Shabbir Abu Talib said that those who had ruthlessly been violating the rights of womenfolk in the past were now posing themselves as ‘champions of women rights’.

Meanwhile, the Sunni Tehrik held a general workers meeting of its women wing on Sunday. Speaking on the occasion, ST chief Serwat Ejaz Qadri said that the party was facing the state-sponsored terrorism and vandalism. In this context, he recalled the Nishtar Park tragedy in which the entire ST leadership had been wiped out in a terrorist attack.

He told the party’s women workers that Islam had given all due rights to womenfolk.

ST women wing leader Naheed Bhatti and Perveen Qadri also addressed the meeting.