SUKKUR: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has said the mosque blast in Peshawar exposed tall claims of the Imran government about rooting out the menace of terrorism and asked administrators of all seminaries to make their own security arrangements instead of waiting for the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government to improve its performance.

Maulana Fazl also strongly condemned the recent French president’s remarks, which he said encouraged blasphemy in the name of art expression, and demanded that the French government apologize to the Muslims as the blasphemous caricatures had hurt their feelings. He then appealed to the people of Pakistan to boycott the products of France and hold peaceful protest against the irresponsible statements.

He expressed these views while addressing a press conference along with JUI’s Sindh chapter secretary Maulana Rashid Mehmood Soomro at Madressa Manzil Gah in Sukkur on Tuesday.

Asks seminaries to ensure their own security instead of waiting for govt help

The Maulana, who is also heading the Pakistan Democratic Movement, said that a federal minister, who had announced that the government would make a clean sweep against its opponents, came under suspicion after the Peshawar incident. However, he asked the media not to blame anyone without proof. He said the PDM’s public meetings in Gujranwala, Karachi and Quetta proved that people were fed up with the ‘selected’ government. The country’s economic conditions had become so dangerous that people were dying of hunger, he added.

He said last year he had to launch the Million March on October 27 — the day when India illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir — against the Imran-led government because it failed to stop the Modi government from annexing the disputed territory through a controversial legislation.

The PDM chief said they were not ready to talk to the PTI at any cost though he did not rule out dialogue with ‘others’. He said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was the B-team of the Imran-led government.

Referring to the issue of islands of Sindh, Maulana Fazl said islands were the property of the provinces and any attempt by the Centre to occupy the land would not be acceptable.

He said the opposition parties also condemned the restrictions imposed by the government on the media. He said the opposition parties were standing with journalists for their rights. He also asked Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) to work within its given framework, while advising media persons not to put blame on anyone without proof.

Coming back to the Peshawar blast and PDM’s struggle, Maulana Fazl reiterated that the government was making false claims about the elimination of terrorists as the incident proved the claims were ‘baseless’. He said the people wanted to get rid of the ‘selected’ government and the PDM would continue its struggle to send the government packing.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2020