KARACHI, April 10: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement will stage a rally on April 15 in connection with the programme announced by MQM chief Altaf Hussain to condemn “the attempt by the administration of Lal Masjid, Islamabad, to impose ‘stick-wielding Sharia’ and run a parallel judicial system.”

This was announced at a press conference held at the MQM headquarters in Azizabad here on Tuesday. Deputy convenor of the party’s Coordination Committee Dr Farooq Sattar told reporters that Guru Mandir intersection would be the starting point of the rally, which will terminate at the Tibet Centre intersection where Altaf Hussain will address the participants by telephone from London.

He said that the MQM would invite civil society representatives and religious scholars to the rally, and hoped that they would give a positive response to condemn religious extremists.

He deplored that religious extremists were trying to impose their own brand of Sharia on masses by setting up the so-called ‘Sharia Court’, resorting to kidnapping women and threatening shopkeepers and womenfolk.

Dr Sattar called for legal action against the administration of Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa, and appealed to the masses to make the rally a historic event.