LONDON, March 25: Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Altaf Hussain on Sunday appealed to the lawyers’ community in Pakistan to let the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) process the Chief Justice’s reference case in accordance with dictates of the Constitution.

“Now that you have registered your protest on the issue by holding country-wide rallies you must now let the SJC proceed according to its constitutional mandate so that no one could accuse it later of having given its ruling under pressure one way or the other,” said Mr Hussain in an appeal to the lawyers issued here through a statement which was released by the MQM international headquarters on Sunday.

Earlier Mr Hussain had disowned the reference saying that the government had not consulted his party while taking the decision to the effect.

Clearly attempting to warn off lawyers from joining the country-wide protest day called by the ARD on Monday, the MQM leader through the same statement also appealed to the lawyers’ community not to allow the political and religious parties to exploit their (lawyers’) agitation and turn it into what he called a vehicle to achieve their (political parties’) ‘evil political designs’.

He said the external dangers and the current tenuous regional situation demanded that “we resolve our constitutional matters through constitutional means” and not let them be debated in the streets through protest rallies and agitation.

Without naming the PPP, the PML-N and the MMA he said these parties were trying to create a law and order situation in the country by launching agitations and protest rallies under the cover of extending support to the bar and bench.

He asked the lawyers’ community to keep away from what he called these political ‘charlatans and tricksters’ who, he said, did noting but wasted their time in parliament in desk thumping and issuing one empty threat of resignations after another.

Dr Imran Farooq, the convener of the MQM Rabita Committee, in a separate statement echoed the same sentiments and appealed to the people of Pakistan to frustrate what he called the evil designs of these political parties out to exploit a situation for their own selfish designs.

Our Staff Reporter from Karachi adds: Addressing a gathering at the MQM international secretariat in London held to mark the party’s 23rd Foundation Day, Mr Hussain warned that denial of provincial autonomy may take a dangerous turn and give rise to the demand for the right to self-determination.

According to a press release here, he said that Muslims of the subcontinent had demanded self-governance areas where they were in majority, but stiff opposition to the demand from the Congress Party forced them to seek a separate homeland.

“Even Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was, in the beginning, opposed to India’s partition, but once convinced that Muslims would continue to get a raw deal and denied a share in power and government, he called for Pakistan as an independent country,” he added.

Referring to the 1940 Resolution, Mr Hussain said that there was no mention of the word ‘Pakistan’ in the resolution and this could be verified from the text inscribed on the Minar-i-Pakistan monument in Lahore.

He said that the demand for provincial autonomy, which was the right of the people, was being labelled as treason, and those seeking this right were being called traitors. Such a practice should be stopped for it would lead the country to nowhere. “Truth is often bitter, but truth ultimately triumphs. The sooner it is acknowledged the better for posterity,” he observed.

He said: “Benazir Bhutto calls herself daughter of Sindh, and Nawaz Sharif calls himself son of Punjab, but if the people of the NWFP ask for renaming their province as Pukhtunistan, they are branded traitors.”

He said that the people of all provinces and territories should be treated equally, justly and fairly.

He said if all parties decided to find ways for stopping military intervention in the future, the MQM would be with them. But merely raising the issue of uniform meant opposing just an individual which, he said, was not fair.