Pervez Rasheed rules out imposing ban on JI
ISLAMABAD: The federal minister for information Pervez Rasheed has ruled out imposing ban on Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), media reports said on Tuesday.
“Jamaat-e-Islami is a legal political party and a signatory to the 1973 constitution and there is no question of imposing any ban on it,” the minister said in an interview in response to a related question.
It is pertinent to mention that the JI leader Syed Munawar Hassan in an interview with a private news channel a couple of day ago had defended that Taliban by comparing the situation with the war of Karbala.
The JI leader had said that companions of Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) were present on both sides in Karbala in 61 A.H. He could not judge from the historical facts that who were on the right side and who was wrong and infidel?
His remarks sparked off an instant reaction from the Shiites demanded ban on the JI because of such anti-Islam and blasphemous remarks. The Majlis-e-Wahdat-e-Muslimeen and All Pakistan Shia Action Committee condemned the JI leader for the statement and demanded immediate apology from him. They demanded that either the JI should sack Hassan or disciplinary action be taken against him.
Last year in November, Pakistan army strongly condemned the remarks of the JI leader Munawar Hassan and demanded an unconditional apology from him after in a television programme he said that if an American who died on the battlefield was not a martyr, then his backers were also not martyrs because they were chasing the same goal. He had also called Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Chief Hakimullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US drone strike, a ‘martyr.’
In the past, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) also demanded imposition of ban on the JI, blaming it for having closer links with militants’ organization including Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other terrorists’ outfits.
When contacted to comments, senior journalist Anjum Rasheed was of the view that JI had been in political party of military establishment since the era of Late Gen. Ziaul Haq but it looks that is in isolation and losing its support in military and civil bureaucracy. He maintained that this is first time that people are talking about banning JI in Pakistan because of its constant and reckless support for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and recent comments of its Chief Munawar Hassan about historic gory of Karbala.
