Muslim
cleric threatens suicide attacks
By Sheraz Khurram Khan
Special Correspondent for ASSIST News
Service in Pakistan
 |
|
ISLAMABAD:
An emotionally charged madressah youth screams slogans against
perceived immorality in the capital as a pile of CDs and cassettes
burns near Lal Masjid on Friday. -- Dawn
|
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- A
hard-line Muslim cleric has threatened to unleash a wave of suicide
attacks if the Pakistan government tries to counter his bid of
enforcing Islamic laws in the federal capital through vigilante Islamic
courts that he announced he would set up.
Maulana Abdul
Aziz made the threat while addressing the Friday congregation in the
Lal Masjid (red mosque) located near the city centre of Islamabad.
"The government has been saying that an operation against us
is the
last option, I want to tell the government that suicide attacks are our
last option," the Reuters News Agency quoted him as saying.
Maulana Aziz, the chief cleric of the Lal Masjid, flexing
his
"religious muscles" in a Taliban-like fashion, set a one-month deadline
for the government to ensure closure of music shops and bordellos.
Last month, the cleric's quest for eroding "immorality"
resulted in imprisonment of three women accused of being prostitutes in
Jamia Hafsa, a radical religious school that is being run under his
patronage.
Aziz reportedly said the religious school students will take action
themselves to stamp out vice from the capital if the government failed
to do so.
"Our youths will shake their palaces with their suicide
attacks," the Reuters News Agency quoted him as telling Friday
congregation at the mosque.
"They should not take the law into their own hands; this
will
create lawlessness in the country. We will not allow them, I will not
allow this," the Reuters News Agency quoted Pakistan President General
Pervez Musharraf as telling a convention on Friday.
Pakistan's leading Human Rights Activist, Asma Jehangir,
reportedly said a rally would take place in the eastern city of Lahore
on April 19 to condemn the cleric's moves.
| The writer is a freelance
journalist based in Pakistan. |
