ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A prominent Pakistani Muslim cleric said Monday President Pervez Musharraf's sweeping crackdown on religious extremism was sowing the seeds of Islamic revolution.
Maulana Abdul Aziz, imam of Islamabad's main Red Mosque, said while there had been no immediate backlash to Musharraf's crackdown, announced on a Saturday, a reaction was brewing.
``This government is paving the way for Islamic revolution by creating hurdles for the Islamic parties,'' Aziz told Reuters in an interview at his home next to the Red Mosque.
``There may not be instant reaction but they will respond once dust is settled,'' the fiery preacher said of Musharraf's decision to ban five militant Muslim groups, including two fighting Indian forces in its part of disputed Kashmir.
``We are just watching the situation but the silence will not last for long,'' Aziz said, adding he believed Musharraf launched his crackdown because of U.S. pressure.
``The timing of this announcement by the president has raised suspicion in the minds of religious people. It is being done under U.S. pressure,'' he said.
Musharraf also imposed restrictions on Islamic schools, or madrassas, which have long been seen as a breeding ground for militancy. New madrassas can not be built without permission and all of them have to register and be brought into the mainstream education system.
He imposed restrictions on mosques and denounced religious scholars who he said preached sectarian hatred and violence.
Aziz, who opposed Musharraf's decision to abandon support for Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers and support the U.S.-led war on terrorism, dismissed the government's justification.
``If they were terrorists groups, then why were they allowed to operate for such a long time?'' he asked, adding the move would weaken the separatist movement in Indian-ruled Kashmir.
``We have lost Afghanistan and it seems we are now losing Kashmir,'' he said of the banning of the two Kashmiri militant groups blamed for the December 13 attack on the Indian parliament. ``This will affect the freedom movement in Kashmir.''
Musharraf's crackdown followed a big buildup of Indian forces on Pakistan's border in the wake of the parliament attack, which India blamed on the two Kashmiri groups banned on the weekend.
The United States had called on Pakistan to get tough with militants to help defuse the standoff with nuclear rival India.
``GOOD DECISION''
A teacher at a madrassa in Islamabad said he had no problems with the new restrictions.
``It is a good decision by the government that madrassas will not be opened without permission. We fully support it,'' teacher Kaleem Mortaza told Reuters at his school.
Mortaza said he would register his madrassa with the government. As he spoke his students in a nearby classroom were reciting verses of the Muslim holy book, the Koran.
One new student, the eight-year-old son of a shoe-shiner said he did hot know why his parents took him out of a state school and sent him to the madrassa last week.
But Mortaza had an answer. ``The parents send their children here to serve Islam and the holy Koran. They join our mission to propagate the teachings of Koran throughout the world,'' he says.
``I have memorized the Koran in two years. Now I am teaching these children to memorize Koran and after graduation from here they will open more madrassas to do the same,'' he said.
The number of madrassas mushroomed during the 11-year military rule of President Zia-ul-Haq when front-line state Pakistan became embroiled in the U.S.-backed war against the Soviet 1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan.
Madrassas, mainly in Northwest Frontier Province and western Baluchistan provinces, produced numerous recruits for Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban movement which erupted on to the scene in 1994 and took power two years later.