Thousands of Islamists rallied in Islamabad on Wednesday to demand the inclusion of a religion section in Pakistani passports, accusing President Pervez Musharraf of secularising the country under pressure from Washington.
"A friend of America is a traitor to Islam," the emotional crowd gathered in the city centre near a marketplace shouted as speakers poured scorn on the alleged US interference in Pakistan's affairs.
The radical six-party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) religious alliance is leading countrywide protests over the absence of the religion section in the new machine-readable passport the government introduced late last year.
Column's deletion an attempt to appease US
They believe the deletion of the column specifying the holder's religion was a "deliberate" attempt by Musharraf to damage the Islamic identity of the 150-million strong overwhelmingly Muslim nation.
"The column of religion is deleted to appease the United States, and turn the Islamic state of Pakistan into a secular one," alliance leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed told the slogan-chanting crowd.
Musharraf is a key ally of Washington in its so-called war on terror and has cracked down on Islamic militancy in Pakistan since he joined the US-led war in late 2001.
Bearded protestors also burned an effigy of Musharraf amid shouts of "Allah O Akbar" (God is greatest), witnesses said.
Islamists insist the deletion would benefit the Qadiyani sect, declared a non-Muslim minority in Pakistan by parliament in 1974 because of its belief that Mohammad was not the last prophet.