close
Thursday March 28, 2024

Religious parties demand conversion bill withdrawal

By Our Correspondent
September 25, 2021
Religious parties demand conversion bill withdrawal

LAHORE: Demonstrations and meetings were held across the country and prayer leaders in Friday sermons highlighted, what they called, the anti-Islam legislations of the government over the last couple of years.

The country-wide protest day was observed on the appeal of the all-party conference hosted by Majlis Ahrar on the previous day to force the government to withdraw the ‘Prevention of Forced Conversion Bill’.

Addressing the meetings and Friday sermons, scholars and leaders from all Schools of thought criticized the proposed legislation, calling it a blatant violation of Quran, Sunnah, the fundamental rights and the Constitution of Pakistan, and vowed they would not allow the government to pass such a provocative legislation in a country created for Islam.

According to reports, while addressing different meetings, noted Islamist leaders including JUIF amir Maulana Fazlur Rehman, JI amir Siraj-ul-Haq, Secretary General of Pakistan Shariat Council Maulana Zahid Al-Rashidi,, Maulana Amjad Khan, Dr. Farid Ahmad Paracha, Maulana Abdul Rauf Farooqi, Syed Muhammad Kafil Bukhari, Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Chinioti, Abdul Latif Khalid Cheema, Allama Zubair Ahmad Zaheer, Maulana Abdul Rauf Malik, Justice (R) Mian Nazir Akhtar, Maulana Abdul Waheed Ashrafi, Qari Muhammad Rafiq Wajhawi, Hafiz Abdul Ghaffar Rupari, Mufti Shahid Obaid, Maulana Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Anq Lobby, Qari Jameel-ur-Rehman Akhtar, Ranam Muhammad Shafiq Khan Pasroori and other leaders delivered speeches.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman said that the illegitimate government wanted to enact illegitimate laws which was tantamount to destruction, adding that they neither recognised the "illegitimate government" nor their laws.

Siraj-ul-Haq said that the PTI government had made the lives of the people miserable in three years while religious beliefs were being targeted. Justice (retd) Mian Nazir Akhtar and others said that the proposed bill was unconstitutional and violation of Article 227 of the Constitution. It is a blatant denial of both the ideology of Islam and the ideology of Pakistan.

Maulana Zahid Al-Rashidi said that at the behest of foreign lobbies, controversial drafts were being presented and passed in the legislatures in Pakistan which are contrary to Islamic teachings and constitutional requirements as well as human and civil rights.

He said the alleged ignorance and carelessness of the MPs in the proposed conversion bill was a matter of great concern to the citizens. Abdul Latif Khalid Cheema while addressing at Jamia Masjid Khatam Naboot Chandrarai Road Lahore said that laws like protection of Finality of Prophethood were are being made ineffective in the light of external agenda and Qadianiyyah is being promoted regularly.