JI launches protest campaign against wheat price crisis in country

Jamaat-e-Islami central chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman has announced launching a protest campaign against the wheat price crisis in the country to support the farmers demanding a “fair” price for their produce.

Speaking at the Karachi Press Club’s ‘Meet the Press’ programme on Monday, Rehman noted a stark disparity among the farmers, saying that the agriculture sector was composed of 96 per cent small-scale farmers who had one or two acres of land, yet the rest of the four per cent owned 40 per cent of the country’s total cultivated land.

He said that the current production of wheat is more than what the country has produced in the past 50 years, and despite having 2.1 million tonnes of wheat in stock from the previous year, the government ordered the import of three million tonnes of wheat worth $1 billion.

The JI leader said that whoever — whether present in the current government, the previous caretaker government or the bureaucracy, or a businessperson — colluded in this malpractice should be brought to accountability and put in jail, for they embezzled the national exchequer in the times when foreign coffers were empty and the country was running on the International Monetary Fund’s bailout packages.

He said that on the one hand the government was burdening the public, especially the salaried class, with hefty taxes on basic utilities such as gas and power, while on the other, it was doing “import frauds for the benefit of a handful of people, including senior bureaucrats, politicians and businesspersons”.

He demanded that the vast tracts of agricultural land unfairly acquired by feudal lords since the time of the British be redistributed among the landless farmers. He pointed out that these farmers who have no platform to raise their voice would have the support of the JI in their struggle.

Judicial commission

Alleging that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan rose to power through rigging in February’s general elections, which he described as the “worst rigging” in the country’s history, Rehman demanded that the chief justice of Pakistan form a judicial commission that should announce the election results as per Form 45.

He said that the powers meddling in the political affairs had imposed these political parties on the nation despite the fact that the public had rejected them on the day of polling, of which the Form 45s were the proofs. He claimed that the current governments formed by these political parties were unconstitutional and illegal, and could not be accepted.

He also said that those who designed this rigging process, desecrated democracy and violated the constitution to achieve their desired results would not be spared, and sooner or later they would be brought to justice for the fraud they committed with the nation.

He added that political meddling by non-democratic powers has brought the country to the stage where there is no way out but to step back to the previous positions.

Alternative bloc

The JI chief alleged that the government was not implementing its plan on thegas pipeline project with Iran because the US had issued a warning against it.

He said Iran had fulfilled its part of the project by laying pipelines until its border, but the Pakistani government had shown an interest in doing its part because it took dictation from the US.

He also said that knowing that it has a strategic geopolitical position, atomic power and key resources, Pakistan should form a bloc with its neighbouring countries, including Afghanistan, China, Russia and central Asian states, instead of bowing before the US, he added.

Karachi’s woes

Speaking about Karachi, the JI leader said that the city is responsible for 54 per cent of the country’s total export, generates 66 per cent of the total revenue and provides 42 per cent of the total taxes.

However, he lamented, Karachi is without basic amenities, and its residents are suffering through rampant street crime, in which 64 people were killed in the three months, while the city’s industries are being closed due to the gas crisis.

He said the JI had raised the city’s case effectively in the previous years, building a momentum for change through political process, but “it was destroyed during the elections through rigging, and the people who contributed to the turning of this city into ruins over the years were put in the government”.