KARACHI, Dec 15: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal staged a rally here on Friday to condemn the Time magazine for projecting Salman Rushdie (author of the Satanic Verses, a book regarded by Islamic world as containing blasphemous contents), a ‘hero’.

Participants of the rally, staged outside the Baitul Mukarram mosque in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, slammed the West and its sponsored media for their “repeated attempts to provoke sentiments of Muslims”.

Demanding imposition of a ban on the magazine, MMA leaders addressing the rally accused the West of perusing double standards. In this context, they recalled that the distribution of the magazine’s recent issue had been blocked when

it published criticism of

General Pervez Musharraf but the publication would face no action for hurting the feelings of millions of Muslims around the world.

They resolved that the Muslims world would never tolerate blasphemy against the Holy Prophet (PBUH), the Holy Quran and any of their holy figures.

They cautioned Muslims not to get provoked by the West’s tactics to trap them, and called for unity to foil all nefarious designs being resorted to by the Western governments and their agents in Pakistan.

Those who addressed the rally included Dr Mairajul Huda Siddiqui, Allama Nazir Abbas Taqvi, Nasrullah Shaji, Yunus Barai and Rafique Khan.