Jalandhari said if any religious scholar or seminary was hurt by the new constitutional amendment, the federation of Pakistan will be responsible for the violent reaction to it. PHOTO: REUTERS
If the 21st Constitutional Amendment is used to take action against religious seminaries, the country should brace itself for a strong reaction, Wafaqul Madaris general secretary Maulana Haneef Jalandhari said at a press conference in Multan on Tuesday.
He urged the government to reconsider the amendments. “Terrorism fuels foreign agenda against religious seminaries in Pakistan... they [the seminaries] have never been involved in any terrorist activity,” he said.
Jalandhari said the amendments had been proposed without a national consensus and warned that it would not bode well for the law and order situation in the country. “The situation will deteriorate and no religious leader will take responsibility for it.”
He said the country had been plunged into darkness by ineffective governance and bad policies. The government should have taken all stakeholders into confidence when formulating a strategy to fight terrorism, he said. “Do not blame religion for sparking or promoting terrorism in Pakistan... blame the state for its bad governance and failures in addressing the grievances of people.”
The general secretary said all religious seminaries in the country supported Maulana Fazulur Rehman’s stance on the matter and would stand by him. “Terrorists must be considered a curse and be dealt with without consideration of creed, sect, religion, faith or nationality.”
Jalandhari said if any religious scholar or seminary was hurt by the new constitutional amendment, the federation of Pakistan will be responsible for the violent reaction to it. He said the government had rushed the 21st Amendment without considering stakeholders’ views on it. “Religious scholars are the real protectors of the ideology of Pakistan... they should have been consulted on this,” Jalandhari said.
Earlier, Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan called on Jalandhari and discussed his grievances on the matter. He said no religious seminary would be needlessly targeted in the operation against terrorists.
He also invited Jalandhari to Islamabad to speak on the amendment and discuss it with religious scholars and leaders.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 7th, 2014.
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It is to be noted how easily seminaries find it to dish out threats of violence to any resistance they meet. Be it from the civil society or the government. And this is a case in point for all those who defend seminaries, schools don't teach violence as a means for resolution of conflict, schools don't threaten to annihilate a country for not letting them do their job, schools don't send their students to murder and harass the people. Schools teach tolerance, seminaries teach hate. Islam is tolerance not hate. Close down all seminaries and leave our kids alone.