Addressing a general workers' meeting on Sunday night here at Gulshan-e-Iqbal via telephone from London, Muttahida Qaumi Movement leader Altaf Hussain said his party will not only resist attempts to introduce the Hisba Bill in Karachi but will foil the move.
The Jamaat-i-Islami leaders have also been heard that they intended to introduce a similar bill like Hisba after winning the local bodies elections in Karachi, Altaf said and added that firstly, their desire to win the coming polls in Karachi will remain unrealised, and secondly, people of Sindh were wide awake to see through the game of the religious extremists, of which the JI was an important constituent.
The MQM leader said, "I was sad to learn that the MMA leader Qazi Hussain Ahmad has not only defended the Hisba Bill, despite the Supreme Court reservations about its clauses, but has called for its re-enactment in the NWFP.
The JI, he said, had opposed Pakistan in the 40s, and was now wearing too many masks at the same time, but Altaf Hussain felt happy that the masses in general have recognised so-called religious leaders' real face and were totally unwilling to fall in their trap.
Altaf Hussain warned the people that religious seminaries, whose number could be counted on fingers before the emergence of the MQM on the political map of the country, proliferated in Karachi after the emergence of the MQM. "These are now in thousands. It was clear, therefore, that these institutions are not only being used to poison the minds of the younger generation about Islam and the concept of Jihad, but their principle objective today was to counter the MQM, which has swept these religious extremists organisations out of the political arena.
The MQM chief remarked that madrassas had been formed to destroy the MQM, but the people of Karachi and the rest of Sindh were intelligent enough to see through the game of these extremist organisations, and would never fall into their trap.
He stated that Islam enjoined upon its followers to give equal rights to everyone, including women.