Clerics of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) have forced women dancers participating in a traditional spring festival in Shahdadkot district in Sindh to leave the event, officials say. Organisers of the festival say they have had to cut the 10-day festival to three days as a result of the threats. The clerics who asked the dancers to leave the area were accompanied by local police, witnesses said. "We asked the dancers to leave the area after obtaining approval of the Shahdadkot district police," Sindh JUI-F Information Secretary Molvi Abdul Razaq Abid told the BBC.
Organisers said some 18 dancers, mainly from the Punjab, perform every year in the festival in Waggan in Shahdadkot district. They said a six-member team of JUI-F clerics, accompanied by local police, came to the festival on Monday and warned the dancers to leave the place in an hour. The dancers immediately complied, they said.
Agenda: Local correspondents say the group appears to be using the rising threat of terrorism to get the local judiciary and police to implement its agenda in these areas.
Three months ago, the JUI-F obtained restraining orders from a local court to force a local television channel, Sindh TV, to abandon a music show in Nawabshah. The party has also carried out extensive graffiti campaigns across the province in which satellite dishes, cable TV and VCRs are described as "three signs of the approaching doomsday".