ISLAMABAD, 9 December 2006 — The Muttaheda Majlis-e-Amal has deferred its plan to quit the assemblies in protest over the amendment to the Hudood laws.
The six-party religious alliance discussed the issue at a meeting on Thursday and decided to postpone resignations till Haj.
“Most of our members have gone to perform Haj therefore it was decided that the MMA would go ahead with its resignation plan after Haj,” Liaquat Baluch, deputy secretary-general of Jamaat-e-Islami, one of the parties in the alliance, told journalists.
The MMA leadership including Fazlur Rahman of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and Qazi Hussain Ahmad of Jamaat-e-Islami met with other leaders of the alliance on Wednesday and Thursday to review the political situation and discuss the resignation issue. They finally decided they would quit the assemblies only after Haj.
Differences have cropped up among the MMA leaders over the resignation issue as the Jamaat-e-Islami announced that its deputies would resign on Dec. 7 but failed to muster support of other component parties in the MMA. “We don’t want to quit MMA,” Baluch said adding, “for us the unity of religious parties is of foremost importance. Lack of unity will strengthen the secular parties that supported the women’s bill,” he said. The rift within the alliance became more pronounced on Wednesday when three parties in the grouping refused to quit the assemblies.
Fazlur Rahman and Sajid Mir, another party leader, said they were not in favor of resignations because they would continue their fight against the government both in the Parliament and on the streets.
21 Killed in Accident
Twenty-one people were killed and several others injured when a passenger bus plunged into a deep ravine in Kohistan district of the North West Frontier Province yesterday.
