LAHORE, Dec 12: MMA leaders at a public meeting here on Sunday criticized Gen Pervez Musharraf for ridiculing what they called emblems of Islam and backing out of his promise of shedding uniform. However, they deferred their reported plan of giving future line of action to their followers till the Dec 19 meeting of the alliance in Rawalpindi.

Musharraf and US bashing was the favourite topic of the speakers at the fairly large gathering, third in MMA's mass-contact drive, amid reports that several dozens buses carrying alliance activists were impounded in districts adjacent to Lahore.

The PPP sent its district level and the PML-N its provincial level leaders to represent the ARD, of which both are the constituents, in the anti-Musharraf meeting. MMA president Qazi Husain Ahmad asked charged participants, raising anti-Musharraf slogans off and on, to also attend the Dec 19 meeting where future line of action would be unveiled.

He warned the army ruler that a 'great but peaceful' Islamic revolution was in the offing. He alleged that Musharraf was using his military dress to utilize the army against the masses, humiliate religious scholars and desecrate mosques and seminaries.

Qazi Husain accused the government of masterminding bomb blasts in Imambargahs to malign religious parties. He alleged that the government had entered into a secret deal with the Agha Khan Foundation to affiliate all educational boards with it by year 2006.

He warned the Agha Khan community that its attempt to take country's education system into its hands would harm its financial interests too as the nation would not accept secularization of the education system.

Opposition leader in the National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rahman regretted that the US was hypocrite as it had invaded Iraq in the name of ridding the Iraqis of a dictator but was supporting a dictator in Pakistan.

Referring to the dual office act, he said the incumbent parliament could not frame any law that was against the basics of Constitution. MMA vice-president and defunct Islami Tehrik chief Allama Sajid Naqvi said the country was facing crisis due to deviation by rulers from constitutional path in seeking absolute dictatorship.

He said the people must not take the uniform issue lightly because it was being used to impose foreign agenda and hit national values, culture, civilization and established beliefs.

He alleged that the powers-that-be were involved in spreading the menace of sectarianism. Punjab PML-N chief Zulfikar Khosa called for joint meetings of the ARD and the MMA to make the anti-Musharraf drive more effective.

He invited MMA leaders to ARD's Dec 20 meeting at Sialkot. A number of resolutions were also adopted by the meeting. These included rejection of the Musharraf formula for the division of Kashmir and his recent Latin American visit, exclusion of religion column from the new passport, lottery scheme by the Punjab government in the name of Punjab Development Fund, and Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi's Indian visit.