One for all: Jamatud Dawa gathering concludes with a rallying call

Hafiz Saeed says religious parties need to band together against politicians.

MULTAN:

Jamatud Dawa organised a gathering to unite all religious parties against terrorism, suicide attacks and US and Indian intervention in Pakistan.

On Saturday, Prof Hafiz Saeed made an appearance in a gathering organised under the umbrella of the Defence Pakistan Forum in Multan. Saeed led a gathering of over 15,000, amid tight security in Multan and addressed a large crowd along with several other speakers. Jamat-ut-daawa has actively been organizing several meetings in various cities in southern Punjab to launch a movement against United States and Indian intervention in the country. Saeed said that he was working to unite religious parties in the country. “All religious parties must come together to defend Pakistan because the army and politicians are catering to the West,” Saeed said.

“The Muslim ummah needs to unite at a time like this where the West is out to undermine us all over the world,” he said, adding that he wished to garner support from all religious parties. Other participants in the rally included Ameer Hamza, Muhammad Ishaq and Qaari Yaqub. The orators said that the US was now willing to negotiate with the Taliban but were labelling all Pakistanis as terrorists. Ameer Hamza said that Pakistan needed to focus on wiping out all western influence in the country. “The real responsibility of the security of Pakistan lies on the religious parties and not on the political parties. We have to focus on returning people to the Islamic path rather than the Western path,” he said.

Speakers at the occasion said that the financial crisis in the United States was a result of God answering their prayers. “The US is weakened and this will give us the opportunity to eventually buy New York and Washington. We will construct religious madrassah’s there to bring them to our path rather than follow theirs,” said Qari Yaqub.

Speakers stressed on ending sectarian, ethnic and religious strife among all religious parties in Pakistan. They said that attacks from the Afghanistan border in Pakistan were actually an effort to bifurcate the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan. “This is an Indian and US conspiracy to divide Muslim nations but it will not succeed,” Saeed said. “The Pakistani government is more interested in serving the US than protecting its own. There are CIA offices in every city of this country and we need to rise against the government,” he said.

The protesters also spoke against the government for trying to stall protests in support of the Blasphemy Law. “We will kill all people involved in blasphemy against the Holy Quran and holy Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). We will not tolerate the silent stance of the government on this issue,” Hamza said.

Prof Hafiz Saeed concluded by saying that all religious parties needed to unite politically, socially and nationally for the progress of Pakistan. “If we are going to take back Pakistan from the politicians and the army we need to end all of our internal grievances and work for the greater good,” Saeed said.



Published in The Express Tribune, July 24^th, 2011.