ISLAMABAD, May 9: Pakistan’s key role in the US-led war against terror came under fire in the National Assembly on Monday at the start of a debate on reported desecration of the Holy Quran at the US interrogation centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with opposition calling for a policy review by Islamabad.

Opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman and several other members from the opposition benches accused the government of going to a humiliating length to help Western powers in a perceived drive to suppress Islamic nations.

“I appeal to the government and rulers to review their policies,” the opposition leader said in a speech in which he accused the “American-led world imperialism” of aggression against the Islamic world.

While the Maulana asked the government to take up the issue with the United States strongly, Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf president Imran Khan called for denying the use of Pakistani air bases by US forces if Washington refused to apologize for the incident.

The debate, which is likely to continue for three days, emanated from several adjournment motions tabled from both the opposition and treasury benches seeking to discuss the alleged desecration as reported in the latest issue of US weekly magazine Newsweek.

National Assembly speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain clubbed all the motions together for a long debate after Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi said the government would not oppose the move about what he called an “insult of humanity”.

The government of Pakistan has already condemned the incident and demanded an inquiry to bring to justice what an official statement called “the perpetrators of this shameful act”.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman said the Pakistani government was doing no better by handing over what he called innocent people to the United States and allowing torture of suspects inside Pakistani jails.

“Hundreds of Pakistani youth are in custody in torture cells of (intelligence) agencies,” he said and quoted one unnamed former detainee as telling him that the treatment in Pakistani jails was more than humiliating than at Guantanamo Bay.

He also referred to the alleged maltreatment of Pakistani prisoners in Afghanistan and criticized the government for arresting “one by one those mujahideen” who had fought on its advice against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

“What examples are you setting in history?” he asked.

“We want friendship with America and Europe,” he said on behalf of the MMA.

But he said Pakistan should feel in such a friendship that its independence and sovereignty were safe instead of what he called the present status of “master and slave”.

“We are fighting a war for our independence and ...we have right of defence against any attack on our religion or Ummah,” he said.

Opening the debate, Imran Khan said the reported desecration of the Holy Quran would only strengthen the impression that the war against terrorism was actually directed against the Muslim world and accused the government of failing to uphold human rights of its own citizens by handing them over to the United States.

Minister of State for Religious Affairs Amir Liaquat Hussain said the government was one with opposition to condemn the incident and raise their voice of protest.