PESHAWAR: Chief of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Maulana Fazlur Rehman said on Saturday that the Pakistan Army would never utilise the ‘musical show’ in Islamabad to come into power.

“The Pakistan Army is a serious institution which will not try to come into power through the musical shows,” the Maulana said while commenting on the ongoing sit-in protest of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in Islamabad.

Addressing a press conference at the JUI-F provincial secretariat here, the party chief said that if someone could bring 5,000 people to occupy Islamabad, than there was no need of elections.

He said that PTI had no political agenda to achieve through the continued sit-in protest. He alleged that apparently PTI had staged the political show to achieve its goals, but in reality it was for the promotion of western culture in the society. He said that dancing of a few youngsters couldn’t be called a political rally.

He said that the protesters were promoting obscenity and vulgarity in the name of sit-in as seen in the past few days in the capital. He said that JUI-F knew how to safeguard the local culture and civilisation. “We are standing by the Constitution and parliament,” he said.

JUI-F warns PAT, PTI to call off protest sit-ins

Mr Rehman said that JUI-F believed in negotiations and it didn’t want to sabotage the negotiation process. He said that PTI chief Imran Khan should show political maturity and flexibility to end the sit-in immediately otherwise he would also give a protest call to his political workers to march towards Islamabad.

The JUI-F chief said that if he announced a march towards Islamabad it would be impossible for the administration to stop people. He said that on the one side about one million tribal people were displaced due to military operation in North Waziristan Agency, on the other the PTI workers had been enjoying musical shows.

He said that the continued political shows in Islamabad had virtually held the entire nation hostage.

Answering a question, he said that in the previous general elections the returning officers were appointed from the judiciary on the demand of the Imran Khan. Mr Rehman urged the media to remain neutral in the ongoing political crisis in the country.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter of JUI-F, meanwhile, asked its workers to remain alert for any emergency call if the PTI and Pakistan Awami Tehreek did not call off their sit-in protests in Islamabad.

The decision to put the workers on alert was taken in a meeting held here with JUI-F’s provincial chief Maulana Gul Naseeb in the chair. Prominent among the participants were Maulana Rahat Hussain, Maulana Attaul Haq Darvesh, Maulana Ashraf Ali, Maulana Abdul Jalil Jan, Maulana Amanullah Haqqani, Maulana Abdul Waheed and Maulana Rafiullah.

They condemned the trend of dances in protest rallies and described it against the Pakistani culture and Islam and decided that protest demonstrations against PTI chairman Imran Khan and PAT chief Dr Tahirul Qadri would continue every Friday in the province. The JUI-F also rejected the demands of the two parties and said that any step against the Constitution and democracy would be resisted. The participants alleged that Mr Imran and Dr Qadri were hatching conspiracies against the democratic system and they would not be allowed to do so.

“The JUI-F warns the two parties (PTI and PAT) to stop dance parties in the name of protest marches otherwise we will also take some serious steps against them,” said the party statement issued here.

Mr Naseeb said that his party was ready to accept every challenge of Imran Khan about holding rallies, claiming that it was the JUI-F only which had held million marches in Karachi, Peshawar and Lahore and the same would be repeated soon.

He asked the party workers to be prepared for any fresh call from the central and provincial leadership so that they could come on to the streets in their respective localities.

“On the one hand the two parties have paralysed the normal life and made the nation psycho patients, on the other they are bringing a bad name to the country in the name of protests, rights and demands,” he said.

The JUI-F leader said that his party would support Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to complete his constitutional tenure as he was the elected representative of the nation.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2014