LOWER DIR: Jamaat-i-Islami Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan has claimed that Pakistan`s one per cent elite class has turned the country into an elite`s republic.

He stated this while addressing the `Dr Aafia Siddique convention` held at the Chakdara fishing hut here on Saturday.

J1 district general secretary Hafiz Yaqubur Rehman, Adenzai tehsil chief Dr Bashir Mohammad, JI deputy provincial chief Noorul Haq and others also spoke on the occasion.

Senator Ahmad said JI would soon announce its countrywide agitation against the imprisonment of Dr Aafia Siddique in an American prison and would mobilise the public for her safe and early release.

The JI leader alleged the then army chief late Gen retired Pervez Musharraf had sold her to the American forces. He said Dr Aafia was arrested from Karachi and shifted to the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan and handed over to the US forces.

Mr Ahmad said he had been raising voice for missing persons on the noor of the Senate as the lone JI representative.

Condemning the desecration of the Holy Quran in Sweden, the JI leader said former army chief Gen retired Raheel Sharif was leading the army of 26 Islamic countries, but he too did nothing to expel the Swedish ambassadors from any Muslim country. He said the Pakistan foreign office had also failed to force the Swedish government to take legal action against the person involved in burning a copy of the Holy Quran.

The JI lawmaker said he had recently met with Dr Aafia along with her sister Dr Fozia and her lawyer, and she told them heartbreaking stories. He said it was a shame for the whole Muslim world that it had done nothing to free the `innocent` Pakistani woman from the US prison.

The JI leader said Dr Aafia was leading a miserable life and it was the responsibility of every Pakistani to raise voice for her release. He asked the participants to join hands with his party to force the rulers to take concrete action for her release.

Senator Ahmad said he would soon give a call for a protest sit-in in Islamabad to push for Dr Aafia`s release.