ISLAMABAD, May 19: Ulema belonging to different schools of thought endorsed on Tuesday the military operation in Malakand division.
Speaking at a conference on ‘Protecting the country from threats of extremism and terrorism’ organised by the ministry of religious affairs, they vowed to combat militancy.
Addressing the conference, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani urged Ulema and Mashaikh to project the true image of Islam to prepare the nation to confront extremism and terrorism.
Ulema, he said, had played an important role in the movement for creation of Pakistan and they should work again to unite the nation.
He denounced the drone attacks inside Pakistan and said they were counter-productive.
In a brief chat with media, Mr Gilani said such attacks harmed political efforts aimed at countering extremists.

Ulema belonging to the Deoband school of thought did not attend the conference. They said it was an attempt to get Ulema’s endorsement for the action against Taliban.
Minister of Religious Affairs Allama Hamid Saeed Kazmi urged religious scholars to rebut elements who were fanning sectarianism to achieve their ulterior motives.
He criticised TNSM chief Sufi Muhammad and said he had taken several thousand people to Afghanistan in the name of Islam after the 9/11 incident and they were killed there.
Prime Minister Gilani said that extremists misinterpreted Quranic verses and Hadith and tarnished the image of Islam.
He said that despite reservations and criticism, the government had accepted the Nizam-i-Adl in Swat for the sake of peace. But the other party reneged on the deal and challenged the writ of the government.
However, he said that when common people, parliamentarians and government functionaries and the entire system were attacked, the government was left with no alternative but to launch the operation.
Pir Khalid Sultan vowed that Ulema and Mashaikh would foil nefarious designs of terrorists, who were killing innocent people and giving a bad name to Islam and the country. “Pakistan will exist till the Day of Judgment,” he asserted.
Pir Habib Ispahani, Khawaja Ghulam Qutbuddin Faridi, Dr Sarfaraz Naeemi, Akhundzada Pir Muhammad Saifi, Dr Ghazanfar Mehdi, Pir Syed Aminul Hasnat, Maulana Abdul Jalil Naqvi, Pir Syed Izhar Hussain Shah Bokhari and Haji Mohammad Hanif Tayyab expressed similar views against militants challenging writ of the government.
Allama Syed Abdul Qadir Gilani, who lives in Britain, also spoke at the conference.