BADIN: In the aftermath of the Jan 30 Shikarpur imambargah carnage, which left over 55 people dead and scores of other wounded, some MPAs belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) approached the Majlis-i-Wahdat-i-Muslimeen (MWM) and suggest that the MWM should lay a siege to the CM’s House until removal of Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah and his cabinet. The MWM, however, chose to keep its long march and sit-in peaceful and not to be part of any such ‘conspiracy’.

This was stated by MWM chief Allama Nasir Abbas while speaking at a gathering held here on Sunday to mark the Chehlum of Dr Ali Raza Khowaja, a Shia cleric who was among many people killed in a gun and bomb attack on a Pashawar imambargah on Feb 13.

Allama Nasir Abbas strongly criticised the federal and Sindh governments for failing to protect the Shia, Bohra and Christian communities from terrorist attacks and demanded a massive operation against all seminaries being run with foreign funding. “All such seminaries are responsible for the mess aggravating over decades,” he added. The cleric said MWM fully supported the ongoing Rangers-led operation in Karachi and said it would help government establish the writ of law and cleanse Karachi of terrorists. Similar operations should be carried out in certain other parts of Sindh as well as Southern Punjab, he said, claiming that some areas had become nurseries of terrorists.

Also read: At least 60 killed in blast at Shikarpur imambargah

The Allama claimed that terrorists coming from Afghanistan and northern areas were using Jacobabad and some other areas of upper Sindh as safe routes to reach their destination, where they intended to carry out acts of terrorism.

“If appropriate measures to check them, the organisations patronising the terrorists could succeed in holding the entire country hostage,” he warned.

The MWM chief and many other party leaders as well as scholars paid homage to slain cleric Dr Ali Raza Khowaja.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2015

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