Leaders of the Tehrik Ahle Hadith (TAH) and the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) met at Abu Bakar University on Sunday and devised their strategy to counter the âattacks on madrassahsâ by the governmentâs secret agencies and arrest of six Indonesian, including younger brother of Hambali, and 13 Malaysian students at two Salafi seminaries in the city last week.
| "We can't have people being arrested just for being associated with terrorist organizations. There ain't no laws against that, are there?" |
âWe had detailed discussion on the issue and devised our unified strategy to launch a protest campaign against the governmentâs atrocities against our schools,â TAH chief Allama Abdullah Ghazi told the Daily Times.
| "We'll protest, by Gawd! We'll turn our people out into the streets in droves... Like we always do." |
MNA Mohammed Husain Mehnati and Sindh MPAs Nasrullah Shaji and Younus Barai â all from the Jamaat-e-Islami â represented the MMA and Allama Ghazi and Maulana Ayesh Mohammed, vice chancellor of Abu Bakar University, were there to host them. âWe told them (Ahle Hadith) that weâll take up this issue at the National and Sindh assemblies,â MMAâs deputy parliamentary party leader in the Sindh Assembly, Nasrullah Shaji, said. Besides, sources said, the managements of all the madressahs in the province would form a joint forum to counter any further raids on religious schools in future. So far, the Jamaat-e-Islami is the only component of the six-party religious alliance that has begun protest demonstrations and rallies on this issue. Two other components of the MMA, Maulana Nooraniâs JUP and Maulana Fazlur Rahmanâs JUI, are intriguingly silent on the issue so far. The JUI has the largest number of Deobandi madressahs in the country followed by the seminaries run by Maulana Nooraniâs Brelvi school. |