Militant chief has eye on Pakistani parliament seat

JHANG, Pakistan (Reuters) - The leader of a banned Pakistani militant group is standing in next week's general election and says he will fight for the reinstatement of his group if he wins a seat in parliament.

Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, head of the outlawed Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan, has a good chance of winning a seat on Monday in the town of Jhang in a poor farming district in Punjab province that has been a group stronghold for years.

"This is our seat and we'll win it. No one can snatch this seat from us," the bearded cleric told Reuters in an interview at a supporter's house in Jhang as his heavily armed guards looked on.

Millat-e-Islamia, or Nation of Islam, was formed in 2002 by members of the notorious Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a Sunni Muslim organization that was for years involved in tit-for-tat killings with militants from the minority Shi'ite Muslim sect.

President Pervez Musharraf banned the Sipah-e-Sahaba and several other militant groups in January 2002 after joining the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism following the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The U.S. also put the Sipah-e-Sahaba on its watch list of terrorist groups.

Its supporters regrouped with a new name but Musharraf, under pressure from the United States to tackle militants, banned Millat-e-Islamia in 2003.

Ludhianvi, who is running for parliament as an independent candidate, denied that his supporters were involved in militancy.

"Sipah-e-Sahaba and Millat-e-Islamia have never had any link with terrorist activities. We've always distanced ourselves from terrorism," he said.

"As far as the ban on my party is concerned, I think it was a repressive act," Ludhianvi said.

He said he was fighting the ban in the court and would also make his case in the National Assembly.

"After winning, I will raise my voice for the reinstatement of my party in parliament," he said.

Election Commission officials say Ludhianvi could not be prevented from taking part in the election unless a complaint was lodged against his candidacy.

"GIMMICK"

Ludhianvi's main rival in the election is Sheikh Waqas Ahmed, a candidate for the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League who ridiculed the government crackdown on militancy, saying it was a show put on for the West.

"It's just a gimmick," he said.

"They tell the goras (Westerners) that they are eliminating terrorism and extremism but the organizations banned for extremism are operating freely," Ahmed said, pointing out the flags of the Millat-e-Islamia fluttering across the town.

Ludhianvi's predecessor as head of the militant group, Azam Tariq, contested the last general election, in 2002, while he was in jail and had won the vote.

In parliament, after he was released from jail, he backed a pro-Musharraf coalition but the firebrand pro-Taliban cleric was gunned down on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad, in 2003.

His supporters blamed rival Shi'ites for the killing.

Pakistan's most feared militant group, the al Qaeda-linked Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is a splinter group of the Sipah-e-Sahaba.

(Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel and Sanjeev Miglani)