ISLAMABAD, April 7: The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, joined by the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), announced on Wednesday that it would resist the changes being made in the educational syllabus and launch a movement against "secularization" of the society.

Speaking at a news conference at the Parliament House cafeteria, MMA deputy secretary-general Liaquat Baloch and a senior PML-N leader, Khawaja Saad Rafiq, said that they would not accept any attempt to change the Islamic character of education or which affected the ideology of Pakistan.

They rejected government's offer of sending the curricula issue to the House's standing committee and demanded constitution of a special committee. Mr Baloch cited some changes including omission of Islamic teachings from the text books published recently by the text book boards of Punjab and Sindh.

He alleged that a phased programme had been initiated to secularize the educational curricula by removing Quranic verses in the first stage describing them unnecessary and in the later altogether removing them by terming them as controversial.

He mentioned removal of Quranic verses supporting various lessons from the Ist year book of biology published by the Sindh Text Book Board. He said the government after failing to control and close down the religious schools as had been dine in Turkey had embarked upon its efforts to secularize the educational system.

He announced that the MMA would take along the student and teacher organizations in its movement against the deliberate attempts at secularization of the society.

Mr Rafiq said his party had a clear stand on national ideology on which it would never compromise. He said: "While we are part of the ARD with no differences with the PPP we will resist any attempt at changing the ideological character of the country. We have joined the MMA-led walkout in protest and we will continue to do so in future."