Religious parties demand army deployment

Leaders demand removal of Sindh governor, claim he is ‘politically affiliated’.

KARACHI: As the law and order situation in Karachi worsens ahead of the upcoming general elections, the religio-political parties have demanded the caretaker government deploy the armed forces to make sure the polls are held in a peaceful environment.

Addressing a joint press conference at Idara-e-Noor-e-Haq on Monday, Jamaat-e-Islami’s Muhammad Hussain Mehanti, Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz’s Saleem Zia, Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam-Fazlur Rehman’s Qari Muhammad Usman and Jamiat-e-Islam Pakistan’s Shah Owais Noorani demanded the election commission write a letter to the army chief and request for deployment in sensitive neighbourhoods.

“The election commission should also make it clear if it does not want to put the demand in writing,” said Mehanti. “Should we understand that the reluctance is on the army’s part?”

“Karachi, as a whole, should be declared sensitive and army personnel should be deputed inside each and every polling station,” said Mehanti. He pointed out that certain political parties, which claim they are being victimised, are failing to make these demands. Mehanti said that whoever is responsible for hindering the election process, whether it is “the Taliban or Karachi’s Zaliman”, should be taken to task.



The leaders also asked the election commission to direct the Defence Housing Authority to stop creating impediments for the political parties in their election campaigns. “The DHA authorities, in their characteristic highhanded manner, have barred all political parties to hold meetings or display their posters and banners,” said PML-N’s secretary general Zia. “How do they expect the political parties to reach to the citizens and run their election campaigns?”

JUI-F’s Qari Muhammad Usman felt the sudden spate of violence was directed at putting off the elections, which could not be the agenda of any pro-Pakistan entity. “Foreign powers and their local agents support the status quo and fear that their facilitators would be thoroughly rejected in upcoming elections.”

Referring to the Pakistan Peoples Party, the Awami National Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, JUP’s central leader Shah Owais Noorani said that the three-party coalition utterly failed to deliver during the last five years. “They have joined hands once again to take people’s mandate as hostage.”

He also demanded the government remove the “politically affiliated governor” before the elections to keep the elections fair and transparent.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 30^th, 2013.