ISLAMABAD Oct 20: Maulana Samiul Haq, the chief of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and the convener of the Defence of Afghanistan Council (DAC), has alleged that the CIA, with Pakistani agencies, is creating differences between the Taliban militia and their supporters in Pakistan.

Talking to Dawn on Saturday, he said huge amounts were being doled out to anti-Taliban and anti-Ulema elements to create a gulf between them.

He said the government had come under tremendous pressure due to protest demonstrations being held against its policies in the country, and that the government was trying to restrain the people from protesting by keeping their leaders under house arrest.

The JUI chief said he would convene a meeting of the DAC in next couple of days to bring about a consensus among all religious and political parties on a unified course of action against military rulers’ policies.

He rejected the president’s claim that he (Gen Musharraf) enjoyed the support of the majority of the people, saying that protests demonstrations had increased after the United States had started attacking Afghanistan.

When asked whether the army would keep its promise of holding general election in the present scenario, he said that in the first place they (the rulers) might not hold the election on the pretext of one reason or the other and even if they did so, such election would not be fair but would be a farce.

Maulana Sami said, “I am constrained to come to the conclusion after witnessing his attitude towards masses that Gen Musharraf was specially installed by the Americans to provide him blind support in their long-drawn design of attacking Afghanistan.”

He asked that when the whole world was protesting and hundreds of thousands of people were on the streets against the US attacks, why the rulers in Pakistan were becoming too sensitive to tolerate peaceful demonstrations.

Maulana Samiul Haq claimed that the ongoing campaign against the US attacks was a movement against the military government, and made it clear that the movement would stop only when its objectives were achieved.