MMA to abstain from assembly session

Islamabad, Feb 8 (UNI) Pakistan's six-party Islamic alliance, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) has decided that its legislators would not attend the National Assembly session until a meeting of the alliance's supreme council, scheduled for February 13, decides whether its Legislators should resign from the assemblies.

The 24-member supreme council will meet on February 13 to deliberate on all the controversial issues and take a firm decision on the resignation issue through a resolution that would be binding on all the six parties in the alliance, The Dawn newspaper reported.

Heads of the MMA parties met in Lahore yesterday and discussed differences on major issues. All of them appeared to have pinned high hopes on the supreme council meeting.

The alliance is seriously divided over the issue of resignation with Jamaat-i-Islami, one of its major components, demanding that the MMA legislators should quit the assemblies while the Jamiatul Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) of Maulana Fazalur Rehman firmly opposes this step.

It appears that MMA has now gained a few more days for resolving the dispute. The leaders appeared satisfied with the interim decision of abstaining from the National Assembly for the next six days.

MMA President Qazi Husain Ahmad told reporters that Maulana Fazlur Rehman was indisposed and the MMA leaders did not want him to be under any tension.

''We have developed a certain level of understanding on all issues and the MMA will give a legal format to the supreme council decisions which all the component parties will be obliged to implement,'' Mr Ahmad said.

The MMA had announced that its legislators would resign from assemblies in protest against approval of the Women Protection Rights bill by the parliament, which repealed the controversial provisions relating to rape in the Islamic Hudood law, considered highly oppressive to women. The alliance believed that the provisions were in line with the Islamic injunctions and should therefore, have not been touched.

However, alliance's secretary general and JUI chief Mr Rehman opposed the decision to resign from the assemblies.

About the MMA's summit meeting, Mr Rehman said it was a 'lively' session. ''We have decided that all MMA parties will abstain from the National Assembly session till Tuesday as an expression of solidarity.'' UNI