ISLAMABAD, July 25: Speakers at a seminar on Tuesday said that long military rules were responsible for the increase in extremism and terrorism activities in Pakistan. They were also of a unanimous view that strong and real democracy was a must to combat terrorism.

The speakers including legislators, politicians, peace activists and representatives of civil society were speaking at a seminar on “Can democracy stop terrorism?” organised by Future Young Group in collaboration with Liberal Forum Pakistan.

People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) Senator Enver Baig said main architect of taking the country towards fundamentalism was military dictator Gen Ziaul Haq.

He said it was Gen Zia who used the slogan of “Islamisation” to prolong his military rule. the military dictators in Pakistan have always supported “fundo-elements” for their own vested interests, he added.

Mr Baig condemned the continued ban on students unions and trade union activities in the country. He said students and labour unions were considered to be the main nurseries to produce politicians in a society.

He said due to ban on students unions, the youth was feeling frustrated and they became an easy prey to those religious fanatics, who used these students as suicide bombers for their vested interests.

The PPP senator said the military dictators had always supported the religious elements and everyone knew that who had established the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) to contest the elections against the PPP.

Similarly, he said, the people knew that the MMA stood for Mullah-Military Alliance. He said again there was military dictatorship in the country and the only solution to the problems being faced by the country was holding of free and fair elections.

Mr Baig said the present rulers had failed to launch even a single mega project in the country to create job opportunities. He said it was during the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government that several important and big institutions, like Pakistan Steel Mills and Heavy Mechanical Complex, were set up in the country which were still providing employment to a large section of the population.

Mr Baig said instead of mega-projects, people almost every day came to know about mega-scandals of the government. He said time had come that army should go back to barracks and perform its constitutional duties.

He said the political system of the country should not be confined to the GHQ. He was of the view that the country should at least have five consecutive general elections and then the people would be able to get good elected representatives.

Information secretary of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Ahsan Iqbal suggested that the topic of the seminar should have been “Can a military regime stop terrorism?” He regretted that the whole world was fighting war against terrorism by supporting a military dictator in Pakistan.

Mr Iqbal stressed the need for eradicating social and economic injustices from the society to curb terrorism.

He said that terrorism and extremism should not be linked to religion and Islam. He said there were extremists in Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism and even secularism.

Mr Iqbal said if people would not be given a chance to bring a change in the regime through votes and if democratic forces would be pushed to wall, then violence would be promoted. He said the country needed to get rid of uniform and people of Pakistan also wanted to have democracy like that of India and Bangladesh.

Asif Khan of the Liberal Forum said Pakistan and Burma were the only countries in the world where military was ruling with the support of the US. He was of the view that terrorism could not be curbed without democracy.