KARACHI, March 22: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal on Thursday asked the military rulers and the government to step down immediately for attacking the judiciary and media.

MMA’s Deputy Secretary General Liaquat Baloch, addressing a press conference at the Jamaat-i-Islami office, Idara Noor-i-Haq, demanded setting up of a national government and an independent election commission to ensure free, fair and transparent elections. He urged all opposition parties to unite on a single platform to push the army rulers out of the power corridors as, according to him, they were responsible for the current judicial and constitutional crises. “Pakistan and military dictatorship cannot go together,” he declared.

Mr Baloch said alleged offences mentioned in the presidential reference against Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry were so common that at least 500 top government functionaries – politicians, ministers, bureaucrats, generals, etc. – would be guilty of the same indiscretions.

He said military operations were under way in FATA and Balochistan whereas the Islamic identity of the country was being changed on the dictates of the United States. He deplored that thousands of people were being picked up for demanding their due rights and many of them were unaccounted for.

In reply to a question about a joint struggle by all opposition forces to remove the government, he said the PPP was not a problem but that party wanted to maintain its secular image among Americans. He said that MMA would continue to support lawyers struggle for the restoration of judiciary’s supremacy.

To another question Mr Baloch said that MMA’s protest campaign would not provide a pretext to the government to declare emergency. He was of the view that the country was already under military rule and emergency laws as major decisions were taken by corps commanders and the civilian set up was just an illusion.

He said that MMA, along with the people, would converge on the Supreme Court on April 3 when the Supreme Judicial Council would resume hearing.

The press conference ended on a light note when Mr Baloch said: “they (the rulers) have pinned too much hopes on (Justice) Bhagwan but Insha Allah Bhagwan (ref. God) will destroy them.”