By Asim Tanveer
JHANG, Pakistan (Reuters) - The leader of a bannedPakistani militant group is standing in next week's generalelection and says he will fight for the reinstatement of hisgroup if he wins a seat in parliament.
Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, head of the outlawedMillat-e-Islamia Pakistan, has a good chance of winning a seaton Monday in the town of Jhang in a poor farming district inPunjab province that has been a group stronghold for years.
"This is our seat and we'll win it. No one can snatch thisseat from us," the bearded cleric told Reuters in an interviewat a supporter's house in Jhang as his heavily armed guardslooked on.
Millat-e-Islamia, or Nation of Islam, was formed in 2002 bymembers of the notorious Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, a SunniMuslim organisation that was for years involved in tit-for-tatkillings with militants from the minority Shi'ite Muslim sect.
President Pervez Musharraf banned the Sipah-e-Sahaba andseveral other militant groups in January 2002 after joining theU.S.-led campaign against terrorism following the September 11attacks on the United States.
The U.S. also put the Sipah-e-Sahaba on its watch list ofterrorist 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 independentcandidate, denied that his supporters were involved inmilitancy.
"Sipah-e-Sahaba and Millat-e-Islamia have never had anylink with terrorist activities. We've always distancedourselves from terrorism," he said.
"As far as the ban on my party is concerned, I think it wasa repressive act," Ludhianvi said.
He said he was fighting the ban in the court and would alsomake his case in the National Assembly.
"After winning, I will raise my voice for the reinstatementof my party in parliament," he said.
Election Commission officials say Ludhianvi could not beprevented from taking part in the election unless a complaintwas lodged against his candidacy.
"GIMMICK"
Ludhianvi's main rival in the election is Sheikh WaqasAhmed, a candidate for the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim Leaguewho ridiculed the government crackdown on militancy, saying itwas a show put on for the West.
"It's just a gimmick," he said.
"They tell the goras (Westerners) that they are eliminatingterrorism and extremism but the organisations banned forextremism are operating freely," Ahmed said, pointing out theflags of the Millat-e-Islamia fluttering across the town.
Ludhianvi's predecessor as head of the militant group, AzamTariq, contested the last general election, in 2002, while hewas in jail and had won the vote.
In parliament, after he was released from jail, he backed apro-Musharraf coalition but the firebrand pro-Taliban clericwas gunned down on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad, in2003.
His supporters blamed rival Shi'ites for the killing.
Pakistan's most feared militant group, the al Qaeda-linkedLashkar-e-Jhangvi is a splinter group of the Sipah-e-Sahaba.
(Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel andSanjeev Miglani)