HYDERABAD: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl Sindh secretary information Maulana Taj Mohammad Nahiyoon has demanded the Election Commission of Pakistan should suspend membership of Sindh Assembly members who had approved the Criminal Law (Protection of Minorities)Bill, 2015, in violation of the Constitution.

He said at a news conference at the press club on Monday that the law against alleged forced conversion ran counter to the spirit of Constitution and Sharia.

Pakistan Peoples Party was desecrating the very Constitution which Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had given to Pakistan, he said.

He said that PPP should have consulted Ulemabefore tabling the bill because it was purely a religious issue and rejected what he called incendiary propaganda that Hindu girls were forced to convert to Islam.

He said that it was interesting to note that human rights activists supported couples for their freewill marriage in courts saying that it was their fundamental right but when a Hindu girl embraced Islam itstirred controversy.

The Maulana said that when family member of a Hindu owner of a famous Hyderabad bakery converted to Islam no one raised eyebrows because he did so to marry a Muslim girl.

The condition that one should be of 18 years to embrace Islam was unjustified. What would happen if a Hindu couple converted to Islam and their children remained non-Muslim underthe new law, he said.

He said that those who passed the law stood disqualified because they had violated the Constitution which guaranteed that no law in conflict with Sharia would be enacted.

He said that Islam did not allow forcing anyone to convert. Forced conversion should be banned but banning voluntary conversion at the pretext of `forced conversion` was quite unjustified,he said, adding that the Sindh government had tried to usurp rights of Muslims in the name of protection of minorities`rights.

The Maulana warned the religious parties would never accept the controversial law and said the JUI-F would discuss the issue in its Dec 1 provincial council meeting in Sukkur and at an all-party conference to be convened on Dec 6 in Karachi.