KARACHI, Jan 13: A peace demonstration is being organized by the Joint Action Committee for Peace at the Mazar of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah on Jan 18.

The demonstrators, wearing white clothes, will gather at the gate of the Mazar of the Father of the Nation that opens on Shahrah-i-Quaideen in the evening holding banners carrying slogans of peace, and they will light candles.

The demonstration is being organized to press the governments of both India and Pakistan to defuse tension, which have recently increased on the borders.

This is the third such demonstration in the city. The first was held at Karachi Press Club, and the second, held at the Expo Centre in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, was baton charged by police.

A peace demonstration was also organized at Lahore and when the demonstrators reached the Wagah border they were also baton charged by the rangers.

The peace activists have drawn the government’s attention to the need for peace saying they were organizing peace demonstrations to spread the message of peaceful coexistence. They, however, regretted that, on the one hand, President Pervez Musharraf was offering friendship to India and shaking hands with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and, on the other, the government’s law- enforcement agencies were ruthlessly crushing peace demonstrations.

They also criticized the government for “giving a free hand to various organizations to hold demonstrations which is only creating hatred between the two neighbouring countries.”

The activists said the IG Sindh, after the baton-charge incident near the Expo Centre, had assured them that serious action would be taken against the Gulshan-i-Iqbal ASP, Asif Ejaz, who had manhandled the peace activists last week, but no action had been taken so far.

“The assurance has turned out to be an eye-wash,” they alleged.