Hafiz Saeed to be part of anti-govt religious alliance

Isloo, Dec 18 (ANI): Pakistan seems heading towards the Islamic religious organisations' alliance in a bid to destablize Pakistan Peoples' Party led relatively-liberal coalition government.

United Nations banned religious organisation Jamatud Dawa, whose militant wing Lashkar-e-Toiba is among notorious groups involved in cross border terrorism in Indian part of Kashmir and becoming an emerging threat to United States of America, is also bracing for a major role in this alliance, which aims to covert plans to change the country's controversial blasphemy laws.

Hafiz Saeed, the key figure of JuD and LeT, who is also said to be among the masterminds of bloody 26/11 Mumbai attacks taking dozens innocent lives, has recently attended an open meeting in the country's capital Islamabad in a bid to join the pre-emptive movement to warn the government if there are any changes in the blasphemy laws.

The scene being created by the religious groups to start this movement, according to the senior intellectuals and analysts, is an attempt to make an atmosphere against the current political set up capturing Islamabad's power corridors.

It is the atmosphere resembling the 1977 Pakistan National Alliance of religious and right wing political groups against the then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's government which initially started with the protest against the alleged rigging in the general elections but later took the shape of a successful movement calling for Nizam-e-Mustafa (The Islamic system) in the country to topple the ZAB regime.

A PNA-style movement is again emerging on the scene after the government announced that it is planning to pardon the death sentence of an illiterate Christian woman after a municipal court awarded her this punishment over dubious allegations.

JuD, which is also emerging as a political and religious pressure group for the past few years with the name of Tehrik-e-Hurmat-e-Rasool (The movement to protect the dignity of Prophet Muhammad), is also set to be on the forefront in this under shaped movement.

THR, the JuD movement, is gradually fuelling extreme religious sentiments in country's direction-less downtrodden youth whose majority belongs to the middle and lower middle class of an indebted and economically hit country's around 180 million population.he organisation motivates, infuriates and provokes youth to do "Jihad" against India, America and Western powers in the name of blasphemy laws as it propagates that these are the countries who are conspiring against Islam and encouraging the acts of blasphemy in Pakistan.

Amir Cheema, a youth belonging to Gujranwala, an industrial city in the eastern part of Punjab, was 'motivated' by JuD's (provoked) speeches before going to Europe to kill the alleged blasphemer cartoonist, a JuD leader claimed in a public meeting few months back. The youth was arrested and later died in a German jail few years back.

The JuD uses such tactics to trap the youth, as this is a sentimental issue for the Muslims. Also, the debate against extreme religious views is not countered by the State or the liberal society to the required extent.

It is generally believed whether this movement of religious groups is able to destablise the government or not, at least it will play an effective negative role as a tool to provoke the public against the sitting government till the time of next general elections. It would give a tough time to the liberal circles of the country and stop their way to power corridors. By Ali Waqar (ANI)

Attn: News Editors/News Desks: The views expressed in the above article are by Mr. Ali Waqar.