KARACHI, Jan 9: The Sindh chapter of the Shia Ulema Council staged a protest rally on Sunday outside the Karachi Press Club to condemn the attempt on the life of religious leader Agha Ziauddin Rizvi, who is also the president of the SUC Northern Areas.
Speaking on the occasion, rally leaders termed the incident a conspiracy of secret hands to deprive the area people of their constitutional rights by triggering sectarian riots.
The SUC Sindh President, Allama Hasan Turabi, who is also the Vice-President of MMA Sindh, in his speech, recalled the role of Agha Rizvi in creating religious harmony in the area which, he said, was being sabotaged.
Demanding the arrest of those involved in the attack and their patrons, he called for shifting Mr Rizvi from Gilgit to Islamabad for medical treatment and urged the people of Gilgit to exercise restraint.
Allama Shabbir Hussain announced full support to the ongoing protest movement in Gilgit against the religious education syllabus and demanded immediate implementation of the agreement reached in this regard. He said that by such attempts the protest movement could not be sabotaged.
The Imamia Students Organization, Karachi chapter, also staged a protest rally outside the press club as part of its protest day against the incident. Speakers said the US wanted to trigger sectarian riots in the country and called for immediate arrest of attackers.
ISO Karachi President, Jawwad Haider, said the United States was trying to turn Pakistan into a secular state by targeting Ulema and intellectuals to destroy religious harmony in the country. But, he said, Millat Jafria would foil all such attempts by striving for the unity of ummat.
Agha Aftab Haider said that the attempt on the life of Agha Rizvi was the outcome of his successful resistance movement against secularization of education syllabus.
He said that a conspiracy had been hatched to fan sectarian riots before the month of Moharram to divert attention of Pakistani Muslims from the problems of Muslims all over the world. Before dispersing, ISO activists raised slogans against the US, Israel, and the Gilgit administration.
MQM CHIEF: Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain has regretted the loss of various lives in incidents of violence in Gilgit and urged people to exercise restraint.
In a statement issued from London, he said that no religion allowed the killing of followers of other religion and adhering to a school of thought was a matter of personal faith.
Therefore, he said, those involved in the killing of innocent people on the basis of faith or sect were not only an enemy of the religion but also of humanity. Mr Hussain appealed to the people belonging to all schools of thought to keep their emotions under control and foiled the conspiracies of vested interests to trigger sectarian riots.
He also offered sympathies to the bereaved families. The MQM Coordination Committee also regretted killings in Gilgit and termed the incident part of a conspiracy to spark off sectarian riots. The committee said that Islam was a religion of peace and those who were killing and plundering in the name of Fiqha were not the well-wishers of Islam.
Expressing concern over disturbances caused by certain elements in different parts of the city, the committee said that those destroying city's peace in the wake of any incident happened in any other part of the country could not be a friend of Karachi.
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