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| India-Pakistan |
| No compromise on Sharia, says Ghazi |
| 2007-04-12 |
| The administration of Lal Masjid has ruled out any compromise on the enforcement of Sharia in the country and linked the start of “formal” talks with the government with the start of reconstruction of seven demolished mosques in Islamabad. “We have told PML President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain that we will not budge from our position. He came to us and we conveyed it to him that formal talks with the government will start only after the reconstruction of seven mosques the CDA demolished in Islamabad is started,” Abdur Rashid Ghazi, the principal of Jamia Hafsa, told Daily Times on Wednesday. Shujaat met with Ghazi and his brother Maulana Abdul Aziz on the premises of Lal Masjid late on Tuesday night. Ghazi claimed Shujaat agreed that the Lal Masjid administration’s demands were “genuine”. “Chaudhry Shujaat assured us that he would soon take up the demolition of mosques with the CDA bosses and issues related to obscenity, pornography, prostitution and other social vices with concerned authorities, to address our concerns,” he said. He said the reconstruction of demolished mosques would show the government’s sincerity towards resolving the issue peacefully. Ghazi rejected the cancellation of Jamia Hafsa’s affiliation by Wafaqul Madaris Al-Arabia and said the girls’ madrassa would conduct examinations itself and issue certificates to the successful students. Meanwhile, a group of clerics led by Wafaqul Madaris Secretary General Qari Hanif Jalandhri on Wednesday met with Shujaat at his residence and discussed the Hafsa standoff with him. He later told Daily Times that the talks between Shujaat and the Lal Masjid administration were moving ahead positively and had so far made “some” progress. He would not elaborate. |
| Posted by:Fred |