LAHORE, July 3: MMA vice-president Qazi Husain Ahmad will lead a protest demonstration outside the Masjid Shuhada on The Mall on Friday (today) against “Gen Pervez Musharraf’s anti-national policies and challenge to degrees issued by religious seminaries.”

The PPP, the PML-N and the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf have announced their support for the MMA.

Flanked by PML-N’s Khwaja Saad Rafiq and PTI’s Maj Bashir, Lahore MMA president Mian Maqsood Ahmad told a press conference here on Thursday they had not sought any formal permission from the district government for holding the demonstration on The Mall where section 144 was already in place.

The PML-N had been disallowed a demonstration on the road only a day before (on Wednesday) against deportation of exiled party president Shahbaz Sharif’s family.

The MMA leader said they believed that no such permission was needed for organizing peaceful activities. He hoped that the authorities would not create any hurdle in the event which would be peaceful like the million marches held a couple of months ago.

He said the demonstrators would also march up to the Chairing Cross before dispersing.

Mr Rafiq said it had now been established that Gen Musharraf could not be ousted through parliamentary struggle and now masses’ power had to be utilised for his removal.

He said the rulers themselves had pushed the opposition to this point by leaving talks on the LFO inconclusive.

He said his party’s workers would participate in the demonstrations to be organized by the MMA across the country to show solidarity with the religious alliance and seminaries.

Maj Bashir said that his party too would fully participate in the protest.

Meanwhile, a press release issued by the MMA says that invitations for the July 6 APC have been sent to chiefs of parties represented in the parliament, presidents of the Supreme Court and four provincial bars, heads of the five chains of religious seminaries and other known personalities.

They included ARD president Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, PPP-Parliamentarians’ Makhdoom Amin Faheem, PML-N’s Javed Hashmi, PML-Q’s Chaudhry Shujaat Husain, National Alliance’s Sardar Farooq Leghari and Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, PML-F’s Pir Pagaro, MQM’s Safwanullah, PKMAP’s Mahmood Khan Achakzai, JWP’s Nawab Akbar Bugti, ANP’s Asfandayar Wali Khan, PPP-S’s Aftab Sherpao, PML-Junejo’s Hamid Nasir Chattha, PML-Jinnah’s Manzoor Wattoo, former presidents Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Rafiq Tarar, Justices Sajjad Ali Shah and Wajeehudin Ahmad (retired), Gen Mirza Aslam Beg and Gen Hameed Gul.