LAHORE - Jamaat-e-Islami chief Sirajul Haq has urged the need of a national consensus for revival of the military courts, highlighting the government’s indecision on the issue.

He was talking to the media at a reception hosted in his honour by ex-MPA Syed Ehsanullah Waqqas on Sunday.

Siraj said that till now, the government has neither consulted the political parties on the issue nor taken them into confidence in this score. The government should have taken necessary measures to streamline the civil judicial system and for the security of the judges and the courts and also overcome the weaknesses wherever, he urged.

However, he added, nothing in this direction had been done during the last two years and the term of the military courts expired.

“If the government found itself in a difficult situation and had no other option, it should have taken the political parties into confidence and evolved national consensus,” he suggested.

Siraj, on the occasion, stated that a criminal is a criminal, no matter he received education from a college, university, or a madrassa (seminary), whether he was sporting a beard or not, and he must be treated as a criminal.

However, he argued, harassing the Afghan refugees or the residents of the Pushtoon areas was not justified.

The JI chief stressed that wiping out ideological and economic terrorism is also essential to check armed terrorism. He said the JI would welcome any operation against the criminals but any such activity should not be used against religion, mosques and seminaries or the religious scholars.

“We want action against the criminals but Islam should not be made the target because this would serve the enemy’s agenda,” he added.

“Considering all those coming from Afghanistan as an enemy and treating all of them alike is wrong,” Siraj opined and added that saints like Syed Ali Hajveri and Lal Shahbaz Qalandar also came from Afghanistan and spread the message of Islam to millions of people in this region.

So far, he further said, thousands of Afghan refugees are camping in the country and they should not be looked down as criminals and every Pushto speaking person should not be taken as a terrorist. “This mindset should change.”

The senator also hinted towards the growing hatred among Afghans and Pushtoons citizens against the Pakistani government. “Detaining any one for being a Sindhi, Punjabi or Pushtoon and subjecting him to torture is detrimental to the national harmony.”