Scholars reject Auqaf Act, announce anti-govt drive

LAHORE: Religious scholars from all schools of thought unanimously rejected the new Auqaf and Evacuee Properties Act as violative of fundamental human rights, constitution of Pakistan and Shariah, and announced launching a countrywide agitation movement against the government after Eid.

The decision was taken at a consultative conference titled ‘Tehrik Tahaffuz Madaris o Masajid’ of noted scholars representing all schools of thought in the county here Saturday under Milli Majlis Sharai (MMS) at Mansoorah and chaired by its president Maulana Zahedur Rashedi.

The conference constituted a 13-member steering committee to chalk out the modus operandi of the movement which would be announced after Eid.

The conference also entrusted the task of challenging the Act before the Federal Shariat Court to Dr Farid Paracha in consultation with the steering committee.

The noted leaders at the conference Dr Farid Paracha, Dr M Amin, Hafiz Abdul Ghaffar Rupari, Maulana Abdul Rauf Farooqi, Pir Haroon Gilani, Maulana Abdul Rauf Malik, Dr Raghib Naeemi, Maulana Abdul Khaliq Hazarvi, Abdul Latif Khalid Cheema, Maulana Aziz ur Rehman, Qari Alimuddin Shakir, Maulana Nazir Ahmad Farooqi, Maulana Fahimul Hasan Thanvi, Maulana Abdul Naeem, Maulana Sarfraz Moavia, Maulana Mujibur Rehman Inqilabi, Mufti Abdul Hafeez, Hafiz Nauman Hamid, M Hasan Madani, Qari Jamilur Rehmna and Waqas Haider were present.

Addressing the conference, Maulana Zahedur Rashedi said seminaries and mosques were being clutched under FATF demands in the notorious East India Company manner, and new law gave huge powers to government officials to close down and sell off the properties of seminaries and mosques.

Syed Haroon Gilani lamented that such draconian laws to crush the seminaries and mosques were not even enacted by British colonists.

Dr Raghib Naeemi wondered why PTI government was blindly following the FATF dictates and had not taken the religious leaders into confidence.

Dr Farid Paracha warned the government against implementing the nefarious designs of separating the mosques and seminaries from society and said it was part of conspiracy to uproot the Islamic character and ideology from Pakistani society.

Maulana Abdul Rauf Farooqi said the Act showed that government was bent upon carrying out the anti-Islam designs of the west against its own society to alter its Islamic character.

Abdul Latif Khalid Cheema said there was urgent need to take the entire nation into confidence over such anti-Islam Act and mobilise people against it.

He said it was not simply a matter of bringing seminaries and mosques under government’s control but a heinous conspiracy to alter Islamic practices and push Pakistani nation away from Islam.

Through a resolution, the conference demanded the provincial governments not to carry out such anti-Islam and unconstitutional Act, and demanded the federal government to amend the Act in consultation with the religious leadership in the country. The resolution appealed to all prayer leaders in the country to offer special prayers in holy month of Ramazan.