LAHORE, Dec 31: The Jamaat-e-Islami says that government’s assurance against any amendment to the blasphemy law will be acceptable only if Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani personally makes an announcement to this effect on the floor of the parliament.

Speaking at a press conference after a rally here on Friday, party chief Syed Munawar Hasan said federal minister Khurshid Shah’s assurance on this issue could not be relied on. He said in order to show its sincerity in this regard the government should initiate an action against the Punjab governor for campaigning against the blasphemy law and also direct MNA Sherry Rehman to withdraw the bill already tabled in the house. The JI chief said the nation had seen through the media the morals and characters of the people holding high public offices. He said elected rulers were religiously following Pervez Musharraf’s policies, which had been rejected by the masses. The US, he said, wanted to involve Pakistan’s armed forces in a war with its own people. The army had already been pushed into operations in Fata and Balochistan and a pullout now was in Pakistan’s interest.

He told a questioner that the government had realised that the reformed general sales tax bill would be rejected in the parliament, so it was not moving it.

Replying to a query about revival of dormant religious alliance Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, he said the MMA had been a religious grouping which stood dissolved. He said the people who were still in the parliament in the name of MMA should explain the factors that led them to fall apart.

JI Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief Prof Ibrahim Khan described the government’s policies as anti-state and said only a sincere and God-fearing leadership could bring about a true revolution in the country.