Implement Shariat or else, Pak activists threaten MPs

ISLAMABAD, Nov 19: Thousands of pro-government religious activists today urged the Pakistan government to immediately implement Islamic laws...

ISLAMABAD, Nov 19: Thousands of pro-government religious activists today urged the Pakistan government to immediately implement Islamic laws and warned opposition MPs of dire consequences if they voted against it.Activists representing radical Sunni Muslim parties, drawn mostly from Punjab, the home province of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, converged in front of the parliament house to press for the passage of the new law. Called the `15th Amendment Bill’, the new law has already been passed by the lower house the National Assembly, and is currently under debate in the Senate, the upper house, before approval by a two-thirds majority.

“We want immediate approval of the law by the senate, and will eliminate those voting against it,” warned Mazhar Saeed Kazmi, a central leader of the Jamaat-e-Ahle Sunnat, which claims to represent the country’s over 70 per cent Sunni population.

Kazmi said if the government backed down and withdrew the bill, his followers would take the matter into their own hands toensure implementation of the Shariat.

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Resolutions read out at the end of the procession demanded restoration of Friday as a weekly off, repeal of all 22 interest-based monetary laws, closure of all liquor outlets, and introduction of Shariat across the country.

Sharif’s views on the controversial have already sparked a countrywide political debate among its supporters and opponents. He has been exhorting the public at large in rallies and open meetings to pressure opposition senators into approving the bill. Several prominent clerics — including Maulana Samiul Haq of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulami Islam — had recently decreed that the opponents of the Shariat bill — should be hanged, and if necessary Sharif should buy the votes necessary for its passage in the senate.

A late report from Karachi said a bomb exploded in the vicinity of a site where Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had opened a road project, only about 40 minutes earlier, according to police sources.

The low-intensity bomb, whichwas believed to be planted on a motorcycle, injured at least two people, they said. A doctor said one of the injured was in serious condition.