LAHORE, March 4: Jamaat-i-Islami amir Qazi Husain Ahmed says allegations that some al-Qaeda operatives have been arrested from the residences of his party leaders are baseless.
He made it clear that the Jamaat would not come under any pressure nor change its principled stand on issues like the LFO.
Talking to reporters and speaking at a seminar here on Tuesday, he said the Jamaat was only protesting the government permission to FBI’s operations in the country.
People arrested by the FBI, the JI chief said, had been working for the Pakistan government, and against Russia, for the past couple of decades. Now buckled under the US pressure, the government had changed its policy towards these people, he alleged.
The Jamaat, Qazi Husain said, was not alone as it enjoyed Allah’s support in its actions. Also, he said, his party had not worked against country’s interests at any time.
Unlike the rulers who he alleged were instrumental to foreign powers, Qazi said the Jamaat was not working for any foreign power nor would give in to pressures.
Referring to MMA’s policy on Iraq, he said it was representative of people’s aspirations and would not be changed. He announced that on March 9, the MMA would hold a ‘multi-million march’ in Rawalpindi to express its resentment against the likely US attack on Iraq.
Qazi said enemies of Islam were afraid of the MMA because of the popular support it was gaining by the day.
As for the MMA’s stand on the Legal Framework Order, Qazi said it was based on principles and logic and would remain unchanged.
Lashing out at the “Pakistan first” slogan raised by Gen Musharraf, the MMA leader said it sounded ridiculous when the enemy was planning to capture Iraq and was likely to harbour similar designs about holy places in Saudi Arabia.
In his opinion, the OIC rulers were unable to unite Muslims as most of them were under the influence of what he called imperialism. He said imperialist forces were responsible for dividing Islamic countries.
The JI leader said the very creation of the MMA had blunted secularists’ propaganda that religious parties representing various schools of thought could not sit together.
Another MMA leader Professor Sajid Mir alleged that the Jamaat was being singled out for action on the pretext of links with al-Qaeda operatives.
Action by any power against the Jamaat would be regarded as an assault on the MMA and the Ummah, he warned. He said it would be a blunder to regard the Jamaat a lonely party, as Qazi Husain was the leader of all sects.
Underlining the need for unity among Muslim countries, Professor Mir said their disunity was the major factor which encouraged the enemy to target Iraq. He argued that if Iraq’s al-Samoud missiles were not tolerable for the enemy, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons would be no exception.