Siraj terms corruption threat to democracy

ISLAMABAD: Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Senator Sirajul Haq had said that corruption and the rule of a single individual was the greatest threat to democracy.

Addressing the newly- elected JI central Shoora at Mansoora on Wednesday, the JI Ameer, however, said that democracy would be strengthened through accountability.   Sirajul Haq said there were some families in the country which owned as many as 18 sugar mills adding that in the past, the rulers had been minting money through quotas and licenses.

However, now they had learnt the art of converting dust into gold through contracts based on the leaks of development schemes, purchase of lands of industrial estates and adjacent to the highways for a few coins and selling these on sky high prices.

He said  the JI wanted the prime minister, his family and all those who had been named by the Panama Leaks and who had unlimited assets abroad, to face their conscience as well as the courts of law.

Sirajul Haq said that system of investigation in the country was most defective due to which the courts and the judges were not dispensing justice. “What can one expect in connection with the Panama Leaks when the law of the land had not acted on MNA Jamshed Dasti’s moral leaks regarding parliament’s affairs?”  he asked.

The JI chief said that the Muslim League was drifting away from its ideological identity and leaning towards liberalism and kingship.However, he said the JI would protect Pakistan’s Islamic identity at all costs and all religious forces would work together to safeguard the Muslim family system, the sanctity of the Holy Prophet ( Peace Be Upon Him), to wipe out the interest-based economy and the advance of liberalism.

The JI chief said that all Muslim counties including Pakistan were facing numerous problems and difficulties. He said that in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, the right of self-determination of the people had been suspended.

He said the present plight of the Muslim world was the result of their own weaknesses besides the US desire for control over the Muslim world’s resources and the huge profits of the arms manufacturing companies.