ISLAMABAD, Jan 17: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) said on Saturday that it boycotted the joint session of parliament in protest against the military operation in South Waziristan, shift in the government policy on Kashmir and presence of the FBI in the country.

Speaking at a news conference after staging a walkout from the session, MMA Secretary-General Maulana Fazlur Rahman alleged that all these actions of the government showed that it was following the US policies.

He claimed that nuclear scientists who were a national asset were being declared suspects and meted out a humiliating treatment. Similarly, he said, raids were being conducted on religious institutions to harass their students so that they abandoned their education. He said the government had to change its attitude.

"No nation can fight its army and we too want to give our due respect to the armed forces but to gain respect the army should also decide that it will confine itself to its constitutional role," he added.

Speaking on the occasion, alliance's deputy secretary-general Liaquat Baloch said the MMA's protest was also aimed at expressing solidarity with the Kashmiri Mujahideen and Kashmiri people as it felt that after taking a U-turn on Afghanistan the government was in the process of giving up its stand on the Kashmir issue as well.

The MMA, he said, expressed its solidarity with the country's nuclear scientists and did not accept the American supremacyin this connection. It also condemned perpetuation of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) in tribal areas.

Hafiz Hussain Ahmed said Gen Musharraf's policies were rejected by two provinces, the NWFP and Balochistan, from where he failed to get a majority vote in the provincial assemblies. Today both these provinces again rejected his policies by boycotting his address to the joint session.