21st Amendment damaged national unity, solidarity: JI

LAHORE
Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Sirajul Haq said the 21st constitutional amendment seriously damaged the national unity and solidarity witnessed in the wake of the Peshawar tragedy.
Delivering Friday sermon at Mansoorah Masjid and talking to reporters after offering Namaz-e-Istasqa (prayers for rains), the JI chief said rulers are actually increasing terrorism and lawlessness by dividing the nation, instead of eliminating it.
He expressed sorrow that rulers were considering the amendment as a panacea for terrorism and had callously ignored the national consensus.
Thousands of people participated in the prayer on his appeal to seek divine blessings in shape of rains to end a prolonged drought.
He lamented that rulers over the last 68 years never made any law to implement Islamic laws but were zealously enacting legislations to curb Islam on the pressure of secular forces in the country and abroad. He asked if rulers considered military courts as panacea for terrorism then why these were created for two years, not on permanent basis.
Siraj said civil courts had played their role by awarding death sentences to eight thousand accused but rulers themselves did not execute the condemned criminals on the pressure of the US, the EU and the greed for dollars.
He said taking pride on military courts by any democratic country in the world was unprecedented. Siraj expressed sorrow that government undermined the national unity and harmony at the instance of some unknown power by bringing a biased and hasty legislation, which could have been improved if rulers showed sincerity. He said more deplorable is government’s post-amendment attitude as it was taking different shameful measures against Islam, mosques and seminaries to please the western masters.
He asked opponents of Islamic rules whether any cleric ever ruled the country or Islamic rules were ever implemented by parliament in the last 68 years.
He said constitutional amendment had opened doors for the terrorists to kill as many people as they liked only if they were clean shaven, wearing trousers and shirts and not Shalwar Kameez, since then they would not be tried in military courts or called as terrorists.
The amendment would give license to kill to everybody who is not supporting a beard and is not wearing a cap, adding that, it will also open doors for secular elements to continue their terrorism by wearing a turban, cap and shalwar Kameez to put blame on religious people, he maintained.
He said the nation would not forgive those who are trying to thrust dictatorship in the name of democracy. He lamented that rulers had betrayed Pakistan ideology despite that they claim themselves to be successors of those leaders who created Pakistan. He said the JI had suggested that in the official amendment, the words “religion” and “sect”, should be replaced by “educational institutions”. The JI chief stressed that a list of those convicted in terrorism cases should be prepared to ascertain how many of them had been studying at the seminaries and how many were associated with mainstream colleges and universities.
He said whoever advised the prime minister to focus the amendment on religion, seminaries and mosques was actually his enemy and has opened a new front against the PM comprising over three millions students of seminaries and their families. He warned that such a confrontation would never be beneficial for national unity and security. He said actually the real issues forcing common people to take the law into their hands were price hike, unemployment, injustices and concentration of wealth into few hands. Siraj said civil war and conflicts were going on in as many as thirteen Muslim countries where Muslims were shedding the blood of other Muslims. He said that by closing the doors of democracy, the people had been driven to the gun. He said that imposing an opinion on someone by force was un-Islamic. However, he advised the Islamic forces to continue their struggle with firm resolve and perseverance, equipped with the power of argument and knowledge.
He said entire nation condemned terrorism and added that the JI had offered greatest sacrifices for the security of the country. However, he said the government had sown the seeds of hatred and reaction by targeting religion in particular. He said after the Peshawar tragedy, all political and religious parties had demonstrated great unity and understanding and given full mandate to the rulers to adopt every possible step to uproot terrorism. However, the government had targeted the seminaries and religion instead of terrorism.