JI Emir to announce Islamabad long march date at Gujranwala rally

LAHORE: Sep 10: Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Emir Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman on Thursday announced that he would give the date for the JI’s long march on Islamabad at a public rally in Gujranwala on Friday as the party intensified its protest against the petroleum levy and other taxes.

Addressing participants of the sit-in outside the Punjab Chief Minister’s House on the 26th day of the protest, Rehman said he had summoned JI leadership from across the country to Mansoorah for urgent consultations on the next phase of the campaign.

He said JI and government delegations had held talks in Islamabad and the government had sought more time to consider the party’s demands. However, he made it clear that the public had already given the government 26 days to end the petroleum levy and address its concerns.

“The government should understand that if the people start moving towards Islamabad, the situation will not remain under anyone’s control,” he warned, urging the rulers to come to their senses and stop imposing levy on the people. “End your own privileges and luxuries,” he told ruling elite.

The JI leader praised the participants of the Lahore sit-in for remaining steadfast and challenged workers to further increase public participation in the protest movement. He said the JI workers should turn the sit-ins into a clear expression of the people’s aspirations. He said the persistence of JI workers had brought the issue of petroleum levy to the centre of public and media debate. The movement, he added, had changed the direction of politics by demonstrating that politics should be about raising a voice for people’s rights.

He criticised other opposition parties for ignoring the problems faced by ordinary citizens and said the JI would continue its peaceful struggle instead of compromising on public demands.

The JI emir also warned the government against interpreting the party’s peaceful approach as weakness. He said the JI youth were fully prepared and waiting only for instructions from the leadership. “These young people can do a lot,” he said.

The JI sit-ins against the petroleum levy are continuing at 35 locations across the country, including Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Timergara, Dir Bala and Bannu.

Turning his criticism towards the Punjab government, Rehman the “Form-47 rulers” were treating the country as their personal property. He said that Maryam Nawaz had damaged the education, health and agriculture sectors in the province.

He said that around 11,000 schools had been sold and that 52 per cent of students appearing for the ninth-grade examinations in government schools had failed. He criticised the construction of schools named after Nawaz Sharif, saying that public assets were being sold while Maryam was establishing few schools in the name of her father.

Rehman said Punjab’s agricultural growth rate had fallen from around six per cent to 0.5 per cent. The government, he said, failed to protect the cotton crop. He described the tractor and Kisan Card schemes as publicity-oriented measures, saying fertiliser and quality seeds remained beyond the reach of small farmers.

The JI chief said that the Sharif family considered Punjab its personal property and resorted to provincial sentiments whenever it felt threatened. He said the PML-N played the “Punjabi card” when facing political pressure, while the PPP followed a similar approach in Sindh by encouraging ethnic sentiments. He said the political system itself had become outdated and that the JI was advocating a change in the system.

JI Vice Emir Dr Osama Razi, Acting Secretary General Nazir Ahmad Janjua, Lahore Emir Ziauddin Ansari, Deputy Secretaries Azhar Iqbal Hassan and Rusal Khan Babar, Lahore Secretary Bilal Azhar and Lahore Vice Emir Zikrullah Mujahid were present at the sit-in. JI Deputy Secretary Sheikh Usman Farooq and Central Punjab Emir Javed Kasuri addressed.