KARACHI, Sept 5: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal Amir Qazi Hussain Ahmad has said that the National Leaders’ Conference has decided not only to remove President Gen Pervez Musharraf from power by a peaceful movement but also to rid the country of military rule. Terming the NLC a historic event which has articulated the nation’s demand that Gen Musharraf should quit the offices of the president and chief of the army staff, he said the call for a countrywide strike on Sept 9 would manifest the national solidarity.

Mr Ahmad, accompanied by Hafiz Mohammad Taqui, Dr Mirajul Huda Siddiqui, Allama Hasan Turabi and Nasrullah Shaji, was addressing a press conference held at Idara Noor-i-Haq on Monday. He said the opposition would launch a decisive countrywide movement after Ramazan if Gen Musharraf did not step down from both the offices and hand over power to the Senate chairman in accordance with the Constitution.

In reply to a question, he said that the NLC call for Sept 9 strike was also against the rising POL prices which had increased the miseries of the people and severely affected the middle class.

He said their movement against military dictatorship would commence after Eid which would be decisive.

Commenting on the victory of Muttahida Qaumi Movement in the local body polls in Karachi, he said people of Karachi knew who won the elections, and alleged that Muttahida had lost public support and popularity. “It is surviving only due to military support.”

He said they were not only willing to resign from the assemblies but could also sacrifice the NWFP and Balochistan’s provincial governments for the sake of restoration of true democracy.

He said that opposition’s struggle against the government would be peaceful. “There is no possibility of any clash, because our army cannot take up arms against its own people,” he added.

Qazi Ahmad said that the local body polls were a ‘farce’ and a ‘fraud’, and similar to the last presidential referendum. He said the ‘fraud’ was not only staged in Karachi and interior Sindh and also in Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan.

The MMA leader, who is also the chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami, said that the opposition leaders at the NLC agreed not to contest any general elections if Gen Musharraf and his coterie remained in power. However, they had decided to take part in the third phase of local body elections to further expose the government, he said.

He said under the cover of the rigged elections which had engaged attention of the entire nation, the rulers had increased prices of the petroleum products by 10 per cent and had taken the first step towards recognizing Israel.

The MMA chief criticized the government on Foreign Minister Khursid Kasuri’s meeting with the Israeli foreign minister and termed it as a first step towards recognizing Israel.

He contested the government’s claim that many Muslim countries had already given recognition to Israel by pointing out that to the day over 50 Muslim states considered Israel an illegal state.

He said it was not true that Pakistan had no enmity with Israel and pointed out that it was on record that Israeli pilots tried to attack country’s nuclear installations.

He said it was a wrong assumption that by recognizing Israel Islamabad would be able to distance Tel Aviv from New Delhi, and added that even after completely submitting to Washington’s interest the US did not stop from establishing links with India, then how could one expect such a change in Israel’s policies.