KARACHI, Nov 24: With a barrage of accusations and scorn heaped on the ‘imperialist America’ and its ‘agents’ ruling Pakistan, leaders of three right-wing parties and a banned charity organisation vowed at a rally here on Sunday to continue their ‘peaceful protest’ against US drone attacks amid deafening chants by their cadres promising their support to the military and government if they shot down the unmanned planes.

“We’ll support the government if it moves forward and declares a clear anti-drone policy, otherwise our jihad will continue and we’ll be protesting until the imperialistic programme is shut down,” Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) chief Syed Munawwar Hasan said while addressing the rally, and paused for a gulp of water.

A party activist standing beside him helped him with a bottle of water, relieved him of the mike and chanted loud slogans: “Nawaz Sharif, shoot the drones, we are with you!” He added in the same breath: “General Kayani, shoot the drone, we are with you!”

Thousands of JI workers, among them a sizeable number of women with children, and those of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) were waving national and party flags overlooking giant banners calling upon the rulers to renounce the American war.

In tandem with the PTI’s sit-in in Peshawar to block military and food supplies to the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, Karachi’s rally signified the fact that trucks originate from the port here for Afghanistan.

Mr Hasan had got the company of PTI’s Sindh chief Nadir Akmal Leghari and MNA Arif Alvi, Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUP) president Sahibzada Abul Khair Zubair and Amir Hamza, a central leader of the banned Jamaatud Dawa.

They were standing on a dilapidated pedestrian bridge on the M.A. Jinnah Road, near Tibet Centre, as their boisterous supporters were scrambling underneath to catch a sight of them.

Mr Hasan was full of criticism for the government, particularly Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whom he was conditionally ready to support if he went against the Americans. Otherwise, he said, Americans were the compulsive enemies of the Muslims and Pakistan and so were Nawaz Sharif and his coterie who were frightened of the Americans and, in fact, were serving their interests.

The JI chief claimed that former military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf had signed a secret deal with US President George W. Bush in 2004 to launch the drone programme in Pakistan.

“Since then, more than 3,000 innocent people have died in drone attacks,” he said.

He criticised Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan’s statement in parliament in which he gave the number of 67 innocent people recorded as collateral damage in the drone attacks.

“By saying this, Chaudhry Nisar has in fact appealed to the Americans to perpetuate their drone attacks,” Mr Hasan said.

He said the Americans always “belittled us and can never be friends of Pakistan”.

Mr Hasan bracketed India as ‘America’s would-be policeman in the region’ and said giving India the status of most-favoured nation for trade would facilitate it to access Afghanistan’s strategic mountains and plains.

He demanded that the government revisit its foreign policy and secure the most out of the current US ‘compulsion’ to withdraw its 100,000 troops and tons of military equipment from Afghanistan through Pakistan.

“Twist the arm of the Americans at this hour and get everything accepted by them before allowing them to withdraw from Afghanistan through Pakistani roads.”

Mr Hasan also asked transporters and their drivers involved in Nato supply operations to sacrifice ‘for the largest interest of the Ummah’ and desist from supplying equipment and other goods to Nato forces.

As he spoke, the activists standing downstairs unwrapped a replica of the US flag and burnt it.

The JUP’s Sahibzada Zubair urged the government to declare its dissociation from the drone programme and shut down military supplies for Nato.

PTI leader Nadir Leghari said: “We’ll be nowhere in the world if we continue to remain silent and be bombed by the drones.”

Jamaatud Dawa’s Amir Hamza said the recent attack in Hangu district should be an eye-opener.