KARACHI, April 14: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has finalised arrangements for the Sunday (April 15) rally in the city to denounce religious extremism and, what it calls, ‘the stick-wielding Shariah’, a reference to the developments relating to the Lal Masjid events in Islamabad.

According to the programme announced by the party, participants of the rally will march from Guru Mandir up to the Tibet Centre intersection, where MQM chief Altaf Hussain will deliver a speech by telephone from London.

In his statement issued from London on Saturday, Mr Hussain appealed to righteous religious scholars, human rights and women organisations, political workers, students, journalists, writers and intellectuals to come forward and save the country from the menaces of extremism and fanaticism by joining in the rally “to show that they reject those who are presenting a distorted image of Islam.” He hoped that masses would participate in the rally to show that they believed in liberalism and tolerance, and not in religious extremism.