KARACHI, June 27: Acting president of the Muttahida Majlis-i- Amal and chief of Jamat-i-Islami, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, was not allowed entry into Sindh on Sunday and was sent back from the airport as he flew in here from Peshawar to participate in the MMA's planned peace march.
Qazi Hussain was not detained inside the airport when his PIA flight landed at about 1:50pm.
Security personnel escorted him to the VIP lounge from where he was put on Shaheen Air's Islamabad-bound flight after around 90 minutes.
On Saturday, the authorities had expelled Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, in a similar manner.
The Sindh government had on Friday banned entry of the two leaders to the province for 15 days.
Security agencies had taken strict precautionary measures to prevent MMA activists from reaching the airport. However a number of MMA activists led by the deputy parliamentary leader of the MMA in the Sindh Assembly, Nasrullah Shaji, staged a sit-in and chanted anti-government slogans for about three hours. Other MMA leaders, Asadullah Bhutto, Mohammad Hussain Mehnati, Maulana Hassan Turabi and Dr Mairajul Huda, were also present.
Nasrullah Shaji termed the provincial government's ban on the entry of MMA leaders a provocative step taken by people who were acting on the 'American agenda' in Pakistan.
Our Staff Reporter adds from Islamabad: Speaking at a news conference at Islamabad airport after being sent back from Karachi, Qazi Hussain Ahmed asked all the patriotic political forces to forge a united front against 'drawing room conspiracies as result of which an imported person was being inducted as the prime minister'.
He termed the ouster of former prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali most surprising and shocking for the nation.
He said the decision was strange because even the ruling coalition had remained in the dark about who would replace Mr Jamali. He said names of probable prime ministers kept cropping up by the minute and at last the name of an 'alien' was announced for the post during the confusion that followed Mr Jamali's resignation.
"Who is Shaukat Aziz and who has named him to head the government in a country of 150 million people," he asked.
Mr Jamali, he said, was forced to resign and announce the nomination of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, soon after which it was said that former finance minister Shaukat Aziz would replace the Pakistan Muslim League chief after getting elected to the National Assembly.
He said the law and order situation in Karachi had deteriorated badly during the last couple of months and many terrorist incidents, including an attack on the corps commander's convoy, had occurred.
He said the people of Karachi were perturbed over extortion and car lifting, that had been going on there for many years. He said the people wanted someone to reassure and sympathize with them as their security and self-respect was in jeopardy.
The MMA leader said the alliance took part in the by-elections to help restore peace in the city but more people were killed during polling than those in the recent Indian general elections and FIRs were not registered on the complaints of the heirs of the slain people.
He said the 'peace march' had been arranged by the MMA to restore the confidence of the people and take everyone along to end tension. He said peace and tranquillity were not acceptable to some forces.
He said that after the expulsion of National Assembly opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rahman from Karachi on Saturday arrests of the alliance's workers had been carried out and the process was continuing.
He said the people of Karachi want to live in peace but the enemies of the country and terrorist forces were not ready to let them do so.