By IANS
Karachi : Karachi, Pakistan's largest city with an estimated 300,000 students in Islamic seminaries, appeared to change tack on the Lal Masjid siege in Islamabad, condemning its clerics and supporting the government.
The clerics of Lal Masjid had given Islam a bad name and the political parties and ulema should have no truck with them, preachers at Friday congregations reportedly told Muslim devotees.
Karachi had witnessed demonstrations sponsored by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a rightwing political conglomerate having a strong presence in parliament, and currently part of the government in the Balochistan and North West Frontier Provinces.
Local newspaper the Daily Times named 15 mosques across Karachi where appeals went out to religious and political leaders urging them to condemn the Ghazi brothers – Maulana Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Ghazi – who have been in control of Lal Masjid and two seminaries that have been in the eye of a storm this week.
In another report, the newspaper said that the preachers at Lahore had also "distanced themselves" from the Lal Masjid clerics.
At least 20 persons have died and a hundred injured in the operations that entered the fifth day Saturday, as heavily armed militants continue to fortify the mosque despite hundreds of students surrendering to the authorities.
The preachers directed their appeals towards the ulema who are also lawmakers, belonging to different political parties. They asked that the Lal Masjid issue be not given "political colour", particularly by the lawmakers at the national and provincial levels.
They also appealed to Ittehad Tanzeematul Madaris-e-Deeniya Pakistan, a body of madrassas or Islamic seminaries.
The clerics said that the Ghazi brothers had ridiculed Islam and the concept of jihad. "If the ulema today don't tell the whole nation the truth, history will not forgive us," the Daily Times quoted them as saying.
The mosques listed by the newspaper, however, did not include Jamia Binoria, the biggest seminary in the city, believed to be the principal training ground for militants by Pakistani and Western strategic experts.
The seminary is credited with sending thousands of mujahideen to Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet jihad, and subsequently, to support the Taliban.
Jamia Binoria has also fed sectarian violence against the Shia and other Muslim sects, besides non-Muslims, according to reports.
Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden reportedly stayed here in the mid-1990s and has been one of its major financiers.