KARACHI, Jan 13: Leaders of some religious parties criticized on Sunday the President’s address to the nation in which he had announced putting a ban on extremist religious organizations.

The Tehreek-i-Jafferia Pakistan (TJP) and the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), which have been banned by the government, have decided to challenge the government’s decision in court and to urge the people to resist the government’s move.

TJP Sindh chief Allama Shabihul Raza urged the government to review its decision. He said the TJP would move court if the ban was not withdrawn. He appealed to party activists not to get provoked and remain peaceful.

Deputy chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Maulana Jan Mohammed Abbasi, appreciated the steps announced by President Pervez Musharraf relating to the Kashmir cause and to India’s aggressive postures, but criticized the decisions of the government about internal affairs, including religious schools, mosques and jihadi organizations.

He was of the view that mosques and religious schools had always played an important role in propagating Islam in the sub-continent, and strengthening it in Pakistan. The measures announced by the President against religious schools and institutions would not be acceptable to Muslims, he claimed.

Maulana Abbasi feared that the government’s decisions would lead to a weakening of Islamic institutions, and claimed that the aim for which the country had been created would not be fulfilled.

“No ruler of any Muslim country has dared to impose a ban on Islamic religious schools and institutions following the example of Mustafa Kamal Pasha. The rulers cannot make the country a secular state,” he declared.

He advised the rulers to change their “wrong perceptions” and avoid banning Islamic institutions and schools in the name of reforms.

The chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Karachi, Dr Merajul Huda, said: “President Pervez Musharraf has misled the people by giving incorrect information about aid to the people of the war-ravaged Afghanistan.”

He claimed that after the UNHCR, the Al-Khidmat Foundation had provided the maximum aid to the war-affected people of Afghanistan.

The chief of the Sunni Tehreek, Mohammed Abbas Qadri, said “the warning to the Sunni Tehreek on false reports sent to the government by the Tehreek’s opponents is disgusting.”

Recalling the killing of Saleem Qadri and others, he said the ST was itself a victim of terrorism.