QUETTA, May 2: The Jamiat Ulema Islam (Fazl) has claimed that during its current membership drive 1.8 million people have registered their names with the party and expects that the number will cross 2 million. Speaking at a press conference at the press club on Sunday, JUI central coordinator for membership drive Senator Dr Khalid Mahmood Soomro said that his party believed in democratic norms and therefore holds party election after every three years.

He said that during the last three months 700,000 people got their names registered with the party in the NWFP, 500,000 in Balochistan, 350,000 in Sindh and 250,000 in Punjab. He hoped that in the next one month another 200,000 people would become members of the JUI.

He said that People’s Party Parliamentarians’ president Makhdom Amin Fahim had contacted JUI chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman three days ago and would again meet to discuss the ARD-MMA working relationship in the aftermath of the meeting between PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

Criticizing the policies of President Gen Pervez Musharraf, he said that the government was taking US dictates.

He demanded an end to military operations in Balochistan and Waziristan.

The senator said that the MMA would resist the government’s move of deleting Islamiyat from the syllabus in the educational institutions.

He also demanded that occupation forces should be withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq.