Raising concerns: JUI-F protest action against seminaries

HYDERABAD:

Thousands of workers and supporters of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam - Fazl (JUI-F) staged a rally in Hyderabad on Thursday to express their outrage against the government’s action against unauthorised seminaries.

They warned the provincial government of a strong backlash if the on-going crackdown does not stop. The activists began marching from Central Jail and went all the way to Kohinoor Chowk.

Traffic remained choked for hours as they walked a distance of over two kilometres, passing through the congested Heerabad, Liberty Chowk, Tilak Incline and Station Road in the downtown Hyderabad City taluka. They also blocked the movement of traffic between the Super Highway and National Highway for two hours.

“In the name of combating terrorism, madressas are being targeted and imams of mosques are being booked in FIRs for using loudspeakers,” said JUI-F provincial leader Allama Rashid Mehmood Soomro while addressing the rally at Kohinoor Chowk. He claimed that over 400 seminaries have been sealed in the province since the start of the crackdown in December last year.

Soomro gave the provincial government a deadline of one month to reopen the sealed seminaries and arrest the killers of JUI-F leader Khalid Mehmood Soomro, who was killed in Sukkur last year. He warned that the party will hold another rally from Sohrab Goth to the CM House in Karachi on May 1 if their issues are not redressed.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 3^rd, 2015.