TIMERGARA, Sept 23: Jamaat-i-Islami central chief Syed Munawar Hassan has said that Haqqani network has no presence in Pakistan.

“It is based in Afghanistan and the US should encounter it there,” he said.

Addressing a public gathering here on Sunday, the JI chief asked the authorities to stop military operation in tribal areas as innocent citizens were being killed in the action.

JI central deputy chief Sirajul Haq, provincial deputy chief Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, district chief Maulana Asadullah, Islami Jamiat Tulba central chief Zubair Safdar, Jamiat Tulba Arabia chief Mahmood Bashir, Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, Muzafar Syed, Saeed Gul, Izazul Afkari, Syed Sultanat Yar and Maulana Mohammad Ismail also spoke on the occasion.

The JI chief said that more than 350 drone strikes had been carried out so far in the tribal areas. Innocent citizens were killed in those attacks, he added.

Mr Hassan said that the US and Nato forces were facing a historical defeat. Hatred against America, he said, was spreading in the entire world. “That is why now some elements in America and the west are making sacrilegious films and cartoons to defame Muslims,” he said.

He asked the authorities to immediately halt military operation in the tribal areas and settled districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as it was not a solution to militancy.

The JI chief said that observing holiday and holding Seerat Conference at Islamabad by the government were fruitless as the world did not take any notice of the same. He said that government should expel the US ambassador from Pakistan.

Mr Hassan said that people wanted change in the country. He said that JI would promote Islamic culture through ballot instead of bullet.

Ruling out revival of Mutahidda Majlis-i-Amal, the JI chief alleged that all political parties were involved in corruption and lawlessness.

The JUI-F, he said, had been part of Balochistan government for the last four and a half years but the situation there had been deteriorating with each passing day.

Addressing the gathering, Sirajul Haq demanded of the government to close the American embassy until the anti-Islam film was banned in Europe and America. He said that Organisation of the Islamic Conference should pressurise the UN to frame laws for imposing ban on blasphemous contents.

Criticising the ruling Awami National Party, Mr Haq alleged that blood was being shed since it had come into power. He said that lawlessness, price hike, selling of national institutions and corruption destroyed the country.

Mr Haq said that police killed innocent citizens in Peshawar to protect the US consulate and cinema houses. “Burning a cinema is a crime but killing a human is not a crime in the eyes of our rulers,” he said.