Multan
Renowned London-based intellectual Toaha Qureshi (Member British Empire) has said that the statement of Wajid Shamsul Hassan, former Pakistani envoy to UK, in which he dubbed Pakistani parliament’s unanimous decision to declare Qadianis non-Muslim wrong, is condemnable and he should be tried under blasphemy and treason from constitution laws.
Talking to The Nation here on Saturday, he added that the decision to declare Qadianis non-Muslim was not Bhutto’s personal decision, rather entire assembly stood united on this issue and liberals like Mumtaz Bhutto and Abdul Wali Khan also supported it. “It was not a decision imposed by the Mullahs. The then attorney general Yahya Bakhtiar gave arguments in favour of the decision,” he recalled. He said that the leader of the Qadianis Mirza Nasir Ahmad and his team were given 14 days to prove their stance but they completely failed and Yahya Bakhtiar won the battle.
Recalling the past, he said that the first foreign minister of Pakistan Sir Zafar Ullah declined to join the funeral prayer (namaz-e-janaza) of Quaid-e-Azam. “When someone asked him as to why he was not joining the namaz, he said, ‘....he did not join because he was a Muslim minister of an infidel government,” he maintained.
Mr Qureshi also criticised the government and said that Pakistan was an ideological state and sending people like Wajid Shamsul Hassan as an envoy to foreign countries was negation of Iqbal and Quaid’s ideology. “His rant is condemnable and entire nation demands a strict action against him.”