PESHAWAR, May 11: The chief of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Maulana Fazlur Rehman has bitterly criticised the crackdown on Ulema and their disciples all over the country and described it as another blunder committed by the government to appease the US and its allies.
Speaking at Meet the Press programme of the Peshawar Press Club here on Saturday, the JUI chief condemned what he called the hostile stance of the government towards the religious parties at the behest of the US and its western allies.
He said his party lauded the Jihadi spirit of religious organisations, but it had not sent anybody to Afghanistan to fight alongside Taliban.
He said there was consistency in the JUI policy. “Earlier, the JUI had supported Afghan Mujahideen against the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and now we have supported Taliban against the US aggression on Afghanistan,” he added.
The JUI chief said if the war against the former Soviet troops was a right action, the Taliban’s jihad against the US aggression was too a sacred act. “We have supported Taliban because they are Muslim. We belong to the same religion. So it was a religious support which we have extended to the Islamic forces in Afghanistan. But, the government has supported the US for economic gains,” he said.
Expressing his dismay over the massive arrest of Jihadi youth, he said the government had unleashed a countrywide crackdown on militants, but it was reluctant to take any action against their war trainers. “It is like arresting the disciples and sparing the masters,” he added.
The JUI chief said the US and its allies had ‘manufactured’ the Afghan crisis to make strategic inroads into the oil-rich Central Asian States. “It’s a Cuba-like crisis, where the Americans first targeted their installations and then held Cuba responsible for the disaster,” he added.
HE SAID: “The US wants to completely occupy the natural resources and establish its political monopoly over the region.”
He urged the governments of China and Russia, the regional giants, to play their role against America’s evil designs on the region.
Referring to the political situation, he said it would be better for Gen Pervez Musharraf to go back home as the people had expressed a no-confidence in his person by staying away from the referendum exercise.
He warned the rulers to refrain from making any surgery into the 1973 Constitution as it was a national document which enjoyed a consensus of all the political forces. This Constitution provided them safeguards on internal and external issues and any amendment into it would be tantamount to its abrogation, he added.
After a long span of time, he said, the nation had been given a Constitution. “We will not allow anybody to replace the main spirit of it with dictatorial measures,” he added.
He said the rulers had mortgaged the sovereignty of the nation with the Americans against the nominal economic gains. It seemed that the country had no foreign policy, instead the rulers were carrying out a US blueprint, he added.
The US and its allies wanted from military rulers to destroy the religious identity of Pakistan by unleashing harsh measures against the religious organisations and making a forcible peace with India, he added.
He said the US administration had advised the rulers to defuse the tension on border with India and restore the confidence of Delhi, but the US never asked India to withdraw its forces from Pakistan borders. The US administration was also silent over human rights abuses in the held Kashmir, he added.
The JUI chief rejected all claims made by the rulers towards the burgeoning economy and termed it a deception and fraud being played on the people. “The US has offered us 1.5 billion dollars’ aid, not more than a peanut, for our shameful role against Afghan people in the US war against Taliban,” he said.
HE ADDED: “Our exports and receipts portray a bleak picture of national economy. The general people have lost purchasing power and nobody is ready to invest here owing to growing lawlessness.” He condemned the killing of French experts.