LAHORE, April 3: The Women Action Forum has expressed its outrage “at the state’s overt and covert role in creating and encouraging talibanisation of Pakistan”.

“We will continue to fight talibanisation of society, since people’s power alone can push back the forces of darkness,” it said in a statement

The forum plans to hold a rally in the near future and ask all concerned to join the protest.

“The latest manifestation of talbanisation in Pakistan is the brazen and illegal occupation of the Children’s Library in Islamabad by Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Faridia, followed by the forced abduction, humiliation and torture of three women and an infant,” WAF said.

“This has shocked every citizen with a conscience and shaken the foundations of our society. The complicity of the state in both cases reinforces the talibanisation process and gives a lie to the farce of General Musharraf’s ‘enlightened moderation’.”

The statement said religious extremists were taking violent action to undermine and negate those very rights for which lawyers and members of civil society were battling. “This is a dangerous phenomenon as it attacks the very rights on which a humane society is based and has challenged the writ of the state. While the government is quick to respond violently against peaceful and unarmed protest, this violent mob was allowed to kidnap women from their homes and policemen on duty,” WAF said, while praising members of the press “who gave strong and extensive coverage to this issue.”

Drawing attention to Quaid’s declaration that ‘religion is not the business of the state’, WAF said it had always stood for the separation of religion from the state.