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Jamaat threat to Sharief's life

The Jamaat-i-Islami's all-out campaign to oust Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharief from power might pose a grave threat to his personal security.

The threat is made apparent by Syed Munawar Hassan's warning that "those who sabotage the successes of the mujahideen [in Kargil] will meet the fate of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman."

Hassan made this statement in Swat (North-West Frontier Province) when he was acting chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami in the absence of Qazi Hussain Ahmed, according to the fanatical organisation's mouthpiece Jasarat.

The Jamaat is known to have close links with a section of the Pakistan Army and most of its agitational programmes are suspected to have the army's connivance.

In September 1995, a group of army officers were arrested for conspiring to kill government leaders and establish an Islamic government. The Jamaat-i-Islami, which sympathised with this group, had synchronised this conspiracy with public advocacy against the system of democracy Pakistan was following and called for the establishment of an Islamic form of government.

In his statement in Swat, Hassan made no bones about the army's support for the infiltrators in the Kargil region. "The army is fully supporting them," he said. This was before the Sharief government appealed to the intruders to withdraw from the mountains on the Indian side of the Line of Control.

Early this year, a Sunni militant organisation called Lashkar-i-Jhangvi made an attempt on Sharief's life in Lahore. A bomb was placed under a bridge connecting Lahore to Raiwind where his family lives. Sharief was to cross the bridge.

UNI

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