PESHAWAR, Sept 20: The provincial chapter of Jamaat-i-Islami on Saturday organised a protest demonstration in front of the Peshawar Press Club to denounce the US strikes and military operation in tribal belt and Swat.

Scores of JI workers with party flags gathered outside the press club and suspended the vehicular traffic on the busy Sher Shah Suri Road, which connects Saddar with the old city area. The slogan-chanting JI activists also set ablaze a US flag.

The JI has announced protests at divisional level across the province against the US ground and air strikes in the tribal areas.

Speaking to the protesters, JI provincial chief Sirajul Haq said the US not only attacked the villages in Fata, but it also attacked the territorial sovereignty and independence of the country. He said it was the time for the rulers to mobilise the masses against the so-called superpower America. He said the US presence in Afghanistan was a permanent source of instability and lawlessness in the area. He criticised the provincial coalition government led by Awami National Party for ‘facilitating the genocide’ of Pakhtuns in Swat and Fata.

Mr Haq said the ‘aerial bombing’ by the army had forced more than 400,000 people to vacate their villages in Bajaur and take shelter in nearby districts. The pro-American rulers, he claimed, had made the people refugees in their own country. He said his party ‘condemned and opposed’ the cruel military operation against the tribal people in Darra Adamkhel, Bajaur, and both parts of Waziristan and Swat.

The JI provincial chief demanded of the government to end the military operation and allow the people to go back to their villages. He said the government had pledged with the people that it would not launch any operation during the holy month of Ramazan, but it dishonoured its own words by pounding different parts of Bajaur with bombs. He claimed that gunship helicopters, tanks and heavy guns were being used against the people of Swat.

The JI chief was of the view that the government had been committing gross violations of human rights in Swat and tribal belt, but the champions of human rights had not raised voice against it. The US administration, which had exploited Pakistan during its so-called war on terror for the last seven years, was sending its troops inside Pakistan to wreak havoc on tribesmen, he claimed, saying the newly installed civilian government was an extension of the Pervez Musharraf regime. He called upon all the political forces to come forward and resist the US designs in this part of the world.