Widespread protest rallies against Israeli aggression

LAHORE:Tens of thousands of people mostly comprising religious workers came out on streets across the country after Friday prayers, taking out rallies and waging protests to condemn the 11-day Zionist army invasion on Gaza Strip killing nearly 300 Palestinians, including 87 children and 75 women, and wounding over three thousand, besides rendering nearly 70,000 people homeless by destroying dozens of residential buildings, hospitals, schools and offices.

Holding protest meetings and demonstrations, and in the Friday sermons, the religious leaders and scholars demanded the Muslim armies that it was time they took decisive action to crush the illegal Zionist state created by British colonists over occupied Palestinian lands. They warned that Israel was created and spread through systematic and treacherous military action,hence, it would be eliminated only through military action and not by verbal condemnations and democratic lobbying.

The call for protests was given by many religious leaders, including JI Ameer Sirajul Haq, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith President Senator Sajir Mir, Tanzim Islami Ameer Shujauddin Sheikh, Majlis Ahrar Islam Naib Ameer Kafeel Bukhari, Majlis Wahdat Muslemin (MWM) leader Raja Nasir Abbas Jafri, Sunni Tehrik Ameer Sarwat Ijaz Qadri, JUP President Dr Abul Khair Zubair and Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) President Allama Zubair Ahmad Zaheer.

JUI-F activists led by Deputy Secretary General Maulana Amjad Khan staged a protest outside Lahore Press Club. Jamaat Islami Secretary General Amirul Azeem led a rally on Multan Road, demanding early mobilisation of Muslim armies to liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Majlis Ahrar Islam leaders Kafeel Bukhari, Abdul Latif Khalid Cheema, Mian Awais, Qari Yusuf Ahrar and others, while addressing a meeting, said if only diplomacy was required to deal with enemies, Holy Prophet (SAW) would have never participated in 27 Ghazwat. Latif Khalid Cheema said Qadiyanis had joined hands with Zionists. Later, a rally was taken out on Wahdat Road to Muslim Town Chowk.

JUP leaders Dr Abul Khair Zubair, Qari Zawwar Bahadur, Rasheed Rizvi and other demanded the Muslim states especially the nuclear armed Pakistan to mobilse their armies to teach Zionist terrorists a befitting lesson. Later, a protest rally was taken out from Firdaus Market to Liberty Chowk.

Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith took out a rally from Daroghawala to Shalamar Chowk led by Punjab President Hafiz Yunus Azad, Nawaz Mughal, Hafiz Babar Rahimi and others.