KARACHI, April 6: The Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) chairman, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, has said that the bill pertaining to the establishment of National Security Council was an extra-constitutional step , aimed at sabotaging and mutilating the constitution.

Talking to Dawn on Tuesday, the ARD leader vowed to put up stiff resistance to the regime's plan of legalizing military's political role and ensuring its paramouncy in every thing. "The bill is intended to give a free hand to the military and strengthen one man's rule and embolden a General in uniform to suppress democracy," said Mr Fahim.

He chided the government's argument that the NSC was intended to block the path of future military interventions and said, "when they will be fully entrenched in power, there will be no need for them to intervene against themselves." This was just a misleading justification, he added.

The ARD chairman pointed out that the bill could be approved or rejected by a simple majority and expressed hope that if the MMA, which had strengthened General Musharraf by supporting the Legal Framework Order, opposed the bill with full vigour, the opposition could give a tough fight to the regime.

Nevertheless, Amin Fahim said that Gen Musharraf was bent upon to get the bill approved by hook or crook. He said that after Friday when the government thinks the bill would be approved by the National Assembly, a qualitative change would take place in the country's politics. He said the opposition would rethink its strategy to oppose anti-democratic forces from further damaging the country, but, he could not give a time frame how long it would take to achieve that objective.

Referring to some reports that the National Accountability Bureau had finalized a few cases to be instituted against politicians, Amin Fahim said that whenever a government that had no roots among the masses was at the helm of affairs it resorted to such stick and carrot tactics.

"All dictators have used this method," he said adding that whenever truly representative government is in power, it has always respected will and aspirations of the people. He termed it worst kind of horse trading.

About the nuclear issue, he said, "The nuclear capability is now a history, thanks to the policy of the regime." Asked to comment on the American envoy to Kabul and Zalmay Khalilzad's statement in which he had said that if Pakistan would not flush out foreign elements from its tribal areas, American troops would launch their operation in that area, the ARD chief said, "We cannot allow any country to interfere in our domestic jurisdiction and violate our sovereignty."