At least 200 veiled women attended a Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) rally under the leadership of JI Women and Family Commission President Samia Raheel Qazi and JI women wing Assistant Secretary General Afia Sarwar in Lahore. The rally was addressed by JI Secretary General Liaquat Baloch and JI Lahore head Amirul Azeem. While addressing the female participants, Baloch said that Islam had given a high status to women and elated them in rank. He added that no man had the right to exploit a woman by torturing her and depriving her of chances of progress and acquiring education. Baloch said that women rights had in fact been introduced by Islam rather than the West which had degraded a woman for commercial purposes, adding that such a system had destroyed family units by driving away women from their real goals in the name of modernism. Baloch said that the news of forceful conversion of Hindus to Islam in Sindh baseless and circulated by the NGOs in a bid to dent Islam’s image.
