Notwithstanding the nationwide rallies which are being held against attempts to enforce strict Islamic law here, a radical cleric has said that dance and music would not be permitted in Pakistan and those interested in these should go to India.
"We will not wait more ... It will now be Sharia (law) or shahadat (martyrdom)," said Maulana Abdul Aziz, one of the clerics of Lal Masjid who have threatened to impose the strict Islamic law in a month's time in the capital.
In his Friday prayer sermon, he said those interested in dance and music should go to India, the media here reported.
Aziz vowed to enforce Sharia in the country even if the government did not itself do so, saying the Sharia would be enforced at any cost for which the whole nation should support the mosque's management.
"We don't need the government's help for the enforcement of an Islamic system because we are capable enough to do it without its assistance," he said
His comments came as moderate political parties like Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and human rights and women rights groups held massive rallies all over Pakistan, opposing threats by the Lal Masjid clerics and their supporters to resort to moral policing and impose Sharia law.
{{/usCountry}}His comments came as moderate political parties like Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and human rights and women rights groups held massive rallies all over Pakistan, opposing threats by the Lal Masjid clerics and their supporters to resort to moral policing and impose Sharia law.
{{/usCountry}}Maulana Aziz invited exiled MQM chief Altaf Hussain for dialogue, but at the same time he accused him of murdering "thousands of people."
He said that the MQM had staged a rally against the Lal Masjid administration on the government's orders. "He (Hussain) should not see the Quran and Sunnah movement through western spectacles ... He should come to Pakistan and know the facts after meeting us."