KARACHI, Nov 17: Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain on Friday declared that his party would oppose any legislation that would curtail rights of women, and challenged religious parties to prove if the Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, passed by the National Assembly, was repugnant to Islam and Shariah.

Mr Hussain was telephonically addressing participants of a massive rally taken out by his followers to celebrate passage of the bill.

Mr Hussain described it ‘a referendum against mullaism and religious extremism’.Carrying party and national flags and holding portraits of their party chief, participants of the rally, organised at a 24- hour notice, saw one of the biggest turn out of women at any single public meeting.

From Tibet Centre intersection to the Numaish intersection, it was a milling crowd of jubilant people having converged on the venue of the rally from all over the city.

Many of them were also holding aloft portraits of President Musharraf.

The entire route of the rally, from Guru Mandir (the starting point) to the Tibet Centre intersection, was decorated with MQM flags, banners, buntings and illumination.

The participants burst into cheers repeatedly as Altaf Hussain denounced mullaism and termed it being ‘outside the ambit of Islam’. Most of the participants had travelled to the rally venue in busses, cars, motorbikes and other means of transportation.

Addressing the rally, the MQM chief said that passing the Women Protection Bill into law was beginning of the elimination of all those laws which deprived women of their fundamental rights.

“MQM is against vulgarity… the Hudood Ordinance passed in the Zia regime was un-Islamic and had been passed on the wishes of Gen Zia and those mauvlis who wanted man’s domination on woman by depriving women of their fundamental rights.” He challenged the religious parties leaders to point out any clause in the newly passed bill if it was repugnant to Quran and Shariah.

“The maulvis have always betrayed their followers… they have never been sincere to the nation,” he claimed, and said: “Today’s mammoth rally shows that majority of Pakistan rejects extremist forces and that there is no room for religious extremism in Pakistani society.”

Mr Hussain observed that religious parties wanted to introduce their own brand of Islam in Pakistan and prevent womenfolk from benefiting from education and health facilities as well as attaining economic empowerment.

He said that MQM had made it clear to those who matter in Islamabad that if any amendment was made to the bill put forward by the National Assembly’s Select Committee, the MQM would totally reject it.

Mr Hussain said that after the passage of the Bill, MMA leaders should have resigned from the national and provincial assemblies because they had pledged to do so.

He said that if MMA leaders would resign, MQM women would contest election in these constituencies. He said that MQM believed in liberal and tolerant society and wanted women’s rights to be restored in accordance with the Islamic teachings.

MQM’s parliamentary party leader in the National Assembly Dr Farooq Sattar, its coordination committee members and joint in-charge and in-charge of different set-ups also addressed the rally.

While the party’s activists and supporters celebrated what their leaders called ‘the day of deliverance’ commuters on a working day faced difficulties as over zealous traffic police closed many roads around the time for Juma prayers. Some of the worst traffic jams were witnessed on Sharea Faisal and in the periphery of the rally route.

Many schoolchildren were also caught in the jam for many hours. Many markets in Saddar remained closed. Visitors and patients in hospitals and clinics located along the M. A. Jinnah Road also faced difficulties during the rally.