MMA restricts JI from attending Pak National Assembly

Islamabad, Dec 9 (UNI) Chief of the six-party Islamic alliance, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) Qazi Hussain Ahmad has restricted Jamaat-i-Islami legislators from attending the National Assembly and drawing perks and privileges.

''We have directed JI MNAs not to attend NA proceedings or appear in the meetings of house committees till the MMA supreme council comes up with a decision on resigning from the lower house,'' the Dawn quoted him as saying in Peshawar.

JI MNAs had also been asked not to accept any perks and privileges they were entitled to, Qazi Ahmad, who heads the JI, one of the main components of the MMA.

Despite serious differences within the six-party alliance over resigning from the National Assembly in protest against approval of the Women Protection Bill, which the MMA describes as ''un-Islamic,'' the JI chief was optimistic that the issue would be resolved amicably.

''Certainly, there are differences within the alliance over the resignation issue, but the JI would try its best to keep the alliance intact,'' he said.

''Initially, all six component parties of the MMA, including the Jamiatul Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), had agreed in principal to resign from the NA in case the Women's Rights' Bill was passed. But suddenly some of our friends backed out of their decision,'' the JI chief said.

He said the JI would not harm the MMA at any cost and strengthen it further, even though some forces were hatching conspiracy to break the alliance.

''We have given another chance to our friends to make a final decision on the resignation issue,'' he said, adding that the alliance's supreme council would deliberate over the issue after Eid-ul-Azha.

He also criticised the statement, attributed to President General Pervez Musharraf, that the Frontier province was being governed by ''illiterates''.

Qazi Ahmed said despite the arrest of 350 JI workers in Punjab, the movement to remove the ''unconstitutional government'' would continue.

Meanwhile, four members of the National Assembly belonging to the MMAl refused to accept the alliance's decision of referring back the decision to resign from the lower house to its supreme council.

The council had already decided that all MMA MNAs would quit their seats and Thursday's parliamentary party meeting had been convened only to decide the mechanism, they are reported to have said.

Hafiz Hussain Ahmed of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, Dr Sahibzada Abul Khair Mohammad Zubair and Dr Farida Ahmed of the Jamiatul ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) and Mohammad Hanif Abbasi of the Jamaat-i-Islami declared in the parliamentary party meeting that they were not ready to withdraw their resignations, as they had resigned in accordance with the earlier decision of the supreme council.

Hafiz Hussain, who is facing disciplinary action by his party for his outbursts in the parliamentary party meeting and has been stripped of the office of deputy parliamentary leader of the MMA in the National Assembly, has said that he would not return to the present assembly.

Mr Ahmad had submitted his resignation to the MMA chief after approval of the Women Protection Bill, which the scrapped controversial and anti-women clauses of the Islamic Hudood ordinance of 1979.

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