Sabotaging JI’s Islamabad sit-in will result in anti-government movement, warns Naeem

The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) will be forced to launch an anti-government movement if the government tries to sabotage its sit-in in the federal capital on July 26.

JI Emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman gave the warning to this effect as he addressed a gathering of lawyers hosted by the Karachi Bar Association (KBA) at the City Courts on Wednesday. He explained that the JI did not want to go for civil disobedience but it was determined to exercise its political rights. The JI was considering all the options, including strikes, lockdowns and boycott of electricity bills, if the government failed to meet its initial demands, he said.

According to a statement issued by the JI, Rehman said the party would hold talks if the government agreed to meet its initial demands. Addressing the KBA, Rehman said the sit-in was aimed at bringing relief for 250 million Pakistanis and any attempt to disrupt it would lead the nation to a full scale anti-government movement.

He said the JI believed in peaceful democratic struggle for the solution of political issues. He made it clear that the government would have to go packing, if the people were barred from exercising their constitutional and democratic rights.

The sit-in would continue till its logical conclusion and the government would have to reduce the illogical and unjust burden of taxes, particularly on the salaried class, he asserted. Talking about the core demands of the party, he said that the unjust agreements with independent power producers (IPPs) that had bound the nation to pay the IPPs according to their capacity instead of actual power generation must be scrapped.

The JI chief said the nation would not continue paying hefty Rs2,800 billion to a few entities. He added that such agreements had been signed from 1994 onwards in the tenures of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) governments.

Under the cruel agreements, Rehman lamented, the nation was made to pay for the electricity that was never generated, whereas the hard earned taxpayers’ money worth hundreds of billions of rupees was siphoned to a few individuals.

Talking about Karachi, the JI emir said a decisive struggle was needed against the K-Electric (KE). He said the KE had continuously been failing to reduce line losses and load-shedding. He alleged that kickbacks were involved in all the businesses surrounding the KE.

The nation would not accept the cruel slab system in the electricity bills anymore, Rehman maintained. The JI chief held the PPP and Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) responsible for the prevailing crimes, corruption and other ills in Karachi. He recalled that the army chief himself had announced that the organised corruption network in Sindh would be busted.

He added that instead of busting that corrupt system, it was given access to Islamabad and Balochistan. Rehman highlighted the burning issues of Karachi such as water scarcity and street crime. He claimed that the traces of crimes led to the Bilawal House.

The PPP and MQM were imposed on Karachi through forging Form 47, he said. He also recalled the oppression faced by the lawyer fraternity at the hands of the MQM and former military dictator Pervez Musharaf. Amir Nawaz Advocate and Ikhtiar Ali Channa Advocate also addressed the event