rediff.com: Maulana Azhar breaks silence to rouse anti-India fury

Thousands of Pakistanis called for a holy war against India in Karachi as extremist leader Maulana Masood Azhar dramatically ended months of silence after his release from an Indian jail.

"Ten thousand have joined us and are ready to give their lives in the name of Islam," said Azhar in a speech on Friday at a mosque in this southern port city.

The police were deployed around the mosque as Azhar whipped thousands of people attending Friday prayers into a fury against India.

"India is killing thousands of innocent Muslims in Kashmir but they cannot stop the jihad (holy war). Tomorrow I may be killed but the struggle will continue," said Azhar, who was released from an Indian jail on December 31, 1999 as part of a deal with hijackers of an Indian Airlines plane.

Pakistani authorities, wary of the country's growing reputation as a haven for Islamic extremists, have tried to muzzle the fiery orator since his release after almost six years in Indian prisons.

Mosque administrators said the police had tried to prevent his speech on Friday but were flatly told that "Muslim leaders cannot be stopped in an Islamic country."

Azhar is leader of the militant fundamentalist group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, which he created in April after quitting the Harkat-ul Mujahadeen, an organisation blamed for several terrorist attacks and kidnappings.

His brother was allegedly one of five armed Muslim hijackers who seized the Indian Airlines plane on Christmas eve last year and forced it on a terrifying journey across South Asia and the Gulf to Afghanistan.

The police denied they were under instructions to stop Azhar, a diminutive Sunni scholar, from speaking at the mosque. Dozens of personal armed guards flanked him as he spoke.

"We have no such instructions but we deployed police as part of our normal security arrangements," senior police officer Aleem Ahmed said.

Pakistan has repeatedly denied that it is soft on terrorism but continues to come under international pressure, particularly from the United States, to rein in extremists and militant groups.

Military ruler General Pervez Musharraf this week held meetings with three of the main fundamentalist parties and reportedly expressed concerns about alleged terrorist training camps in Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan.

But the general who seized power in October has so far been unable to stand up to the powerful religious lobby, which has succeeded in reversing changes to the blasphemy law and reinstating Islamic clauses of the suspended constitution.


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Maulana Azhar breaks silence to rouse anti-India fury: PTI