KARACHI: JI sees US, West behind changes in Hudood laws
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Aug 24: Naib Amir of Jamaat-i-Islami Prof Ghafoor Ahmed has said that the government was insisting on amending the Hudood laws and has moved a bill for the purpose under pressure from US administration and western governments which propagate that the sentences prescribed under Sharia laws are inhuman.
In their bid to get the Hudood laws repealed, the US and the West have been sponsoring and patronising big campaigns through media and NGOs and using Pakistani women influenced by the western lifestyle.
However, he warned, the nation would not tolerate any amendment to or repeal of the Hudood laws and would resist any such attempt tooth and nail. Addressing a press conference at the JI office, Idara Noor-i-Haq, here on Thursday, Prof Ghafoor said the MQM could bring government functionaries to its rallies by subjecting them to threats and intimidation, but not masses who would not come under its pressure.
He said that the opposition had decided to launch a countrywide movement against the rulers and the public meeting scheduled for Aug 27 in this regard at Nishtar Park would be a massive one were ANP chief Asfandyar Wali Khan and PTI chief Imran Khan would also be present.
Recalling that the Hudood laws had been enacted and enforced by Gen Ziaul Haq in 1979, but no successive government had since dared to amend them. Even Benazir Bhutto, who led PPP government twice, did not try to amend or repeal them. The present government, he pointed out, had resorted to moving a bill to breake unity of the joint opposition at a time when the latter was going to move a no-confidence motion against the premier.
Prof Ghafoor insisted that the no-confidence motion would succeed if secret balloting was held. However, he regretted, the government was insisting on show of hands.
He criticised the MQM for unleashing propaganda against the MMA using the pretext of desecration of holy names and inscriptions, saying that it was doing all this to cover up the crime it had been committing. Defending the MMA’s conduct in assemblies, Prof Ghafoor declared that those supporting amendments to the Hudood laws were liable to punishment.
He also deplored PTV which, according to him had acted like MQMTV on Thursday repeatedly covering the MQM rally only one day after MQM legislators staged a demonstration outside the parliament house against the treatment meted out to some of its leaders by police.
The JI leader said that the entire MQM leadership in Karachi had disappeared when monsoon rain last week devastated the city but they had now reappeared and became active again just to cover up their criminal negligence. “The military rulers are hand in gloves with the MQM, which has been acting as their B-team,” he remarked.
Prof Ghafoor recalled that the MQM had been expressing it strong reservations to the ban on teachers’ associations but kept a discreet silence when teachers staged a rally against the ban and were subjected to torture and arrest by police.
He also criticised media for not informing the nation that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan had contracted cancer due to severe mental torture and that his daughters were not being allowed to see him.
JUP leader Abdul Haleem Ghauri and Islami Tehrik leader Allama Nazir Abbas Naqvi , who were present on the occasion, termed the government act of moving the bill on amendment to the Hudood laws ‘a calculated move’ aimed at sabotaging the opposition’s no-confidence motion and MMA’s anti-government movement. General Secretary of the JI’s women wing Dr Kausar Firdaus also spoke.
