Religious parties vow to defend Islamic provisions of Constitution

Lahore: Leading Ulema from all schools of thought and high ups of the Wifaq ul Madaris at a meeting here on Thursday, called upon the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to promptly remove the confusion in the apex court majority judgment in the petitions related to the 21^st amendment in regard to the Objectives Resolution and the Islamic provisions of the constitution.

The meeting chaired by JI Secretary General, Liaqat Baloch,  and attended among others by JUI’s Maulana Amjad Khan, Jamia al Muntazar’s Allama Afzal Haideri and Ahle Hadith leader Maulana Abdul Ghaffar Ropari, in its declaration adopted at the meeting, noted that the majority judgment made a mention of the independent judiciary, basic rights, democracy, and basic structure of the parliamentary system, but was silent on Objectives Resolution, Islamic provisions of the constitution and its Islamic character. As such, this judgment could lead to an ideological clash in the country.

The declaration noted that the war against terrorism had been started with the consensus of all political and religious parties but under its cover, action had been started against madrissahs. Most insulting procedure was being adopted to get information from madrissahs and the police and security agencies were raiding the seminaries. It said that all relevant information was already available with the government which was obstructing the registration of the unregistered ones.

The meeting called upon the government to honour its commitment to go ahead with the 22^nd amendment in order to delete the word religion in the 2st amendment by the parliament.

It made it clear that there could be no compromise so far as the Islamic character and identity of Pakistan was concerned and all religious forces stood united to safeguard that.

The meeting condemned the ban on the cow slaughter in India terming it violation of the rights of the Muslims in India. It urged the UN to stop Indian government and extremist Hindus from adopting this course.

It condemned the Punjab government decision banning the slaughter of female cattle and sheep and demanded its immediate withdrawal for being against the Islamic injunctions.