Pakistani religious party leader warns of march on Islamabad

Leader of a Pakistani religious party on Sunday warned of protest demonstration in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad if the government failed to stop military operations against Taliban in the country's tribal region and settled district.

Sirajul Haq, chief of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) in the country's North-Western Frontier Province (NWFP) told a news conference that the party would collect people from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and other districts of province and stage a sit-in in the country's central capital of Islamabad to mark their protest.

Siraj JI party is quite active against the Pakistani government's support for the United States' anti-terror war in Afghanistan. Last month, the party staged a show of power in Pakistan's northern city of Peshawar to force the government to close the NATO supply route passing through the Khyber Agency of the country.

The JI leader said the government should stop the military operations in the tribal areas. Otherwise, JI workers would march on Islamabad.

The party had boycotted the February general elections in the country for its differences with the then president Pervez MusharrafPervez Musharraf and the lingering issue of the restoration of judges, who were removed from services by the military general in March 2008.

The country's chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and several of his colleagues are still awaiting re-instatement in their old seats but the incumbent government of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of late Benazir BhuttoBenazir Bhutto is yet to issue the orders of their restoration.

Siraj said the operation in Khyber Agency was launched to protect the NATO forces’s supply line passing through Jamrud. He said the Pakistani government and security forces were killing their own people to provide protection to the foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan.

He said the people Pakistan were expecting a message of peace with the unfolding of the new year, but they were given a gift of fresh operation in Jamrud sub-division of Khyber Agency by the government.

He said both the federal and provincial governments were not sincere in bringing peace in the region and the launching of operation in Jamrud had proved the same.

The JI leader said it was ridiculous that the prime minister was condemning Israeli troops atrocities in Palestinian areas but his own government was involved in similar action in the country’s tribal belt and settled districts of NWFP.

The JI leader said that 3,500 people had been killed in Bajaur and 2,200 in Swat in the ongoing military operations. He said operations were still continued in Mohmand and Khyber agencies as well as in Darra Adam Khel and other areas. "The official figure of casualties has crossed 7,000 so far in all the affected areas," he claimed.