HYDERABAD, July 11: Activists of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) staged a demonstration on Wednesday outside the local press club to condemn Lal Masjid tragedy.

MMA district president Abdul Waheed Qureshi, Jamaat-i-Islami city ameer Sheikh Shaukat, PML-N's Afzal Gujjar and NLF's Rana Mehmood Ali Khan who led the protest said that Gen Pervez Musharraf had launched the campaign against seminaries and mosques under US dictates and it would cost him very dearly.

They said that Ulema and ministers had drafted a unanimous agreement, which Gen Musharraf rejected to appease the US. Lal Masjid incident was far bigger a tragedy when compared to the bombing in tribal areas and Balochistan and May 12 carnage as the government used poisonous gas against children, women and seminary students in the operation.

They said that Lal Masjid cleric Ghazi Abdul Rashid and his students had not committed any unislamic act. Killing of army commandos in the operation was also a tragedy and everybody was feeling sorry for them, they said.

They said that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam but the people who were demanding enforcement of Shariah were being massacred here. Ghazi was prepared to surrender before media and Ulema but the move could have turned the tables on the government that was why the general did not agree to it, they claimed.

They expressed the fear that the government could kill foreigners nabbed elsewhere in the country and place their bodies in Lal Masjid to lend proof to their claims that foreigner were hidden in the mosque.

They said that the action against Lal Masjid, Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Faridiya was just a beginning of a long campaign for the elimination of religious seminaries.

They condemned the statements issued by Benazir Bhutto and Altaf Hussain praising army operation and demanded that the PPP should be expelled from the all-party conference.

Later, Abdul Waheed Qureshi led ghaibana namaz-i-janaza for the people who died in Lal Masjid operation.