RAWALPINDI, July 4: The Difaa-i-Pakistan Council (DPC) will hold a march from Lahore to Islamabad on July 8 in protest against the restoration of Nato supplies to Afghanistan.

“A committee has been formed to ask all other political and religious parties to join the long march to stop the Nato supplies,” DPC chief Maulana Samiul Haq said at a press conference here on Wednesday.

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, chief of the banned Jamaatud Dawa, former railways minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, Hameed Gul, Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki and Liaquat Baloch were present at the press conference at a hotel run by the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation which is close to the army’s GHQ on The Mall.

Maulana Sami said he would talk to JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Sheikh Rasheed to PTI’s Imran Khan and Jamaat-i-Islami leader Liaquat Baloch to PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif and urge them to join the long march against what he termed an ‘undemocratic decision of a democratic government”.

“The government defied a resolution of parliament, its mother institution, that had clearly decided not to resume the supply as long as drone attacks were not stopped,” he said. He said innocent people were killed in drone attacks and the government was giving way to Nato forces to kill more innocent people.