Corruption threw country into abyss of terrorism: Siraj

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has termed the rampant corruption the biggest issue eating away the very foundations of the country and said corruption threw the country into the abyss of terrorism.A political party had been ruling Sindh province for the last four decades but the masses were still living in the stone age there, he said while addressing the teachers and heads of JI-affiliated educational institutions at Mansoora on Saturday.

Sirajul Haq said while the armed terrorists had killed around one hundred thousand Pakistanis during the last one and a half decades, the economic terrorism had crushed the backbone of two hundred million people in the country. He said world’s largest steel mills in Karachi had been made a failure only by corruption and bad governance of the rulers as its staff had not been paid salaries for the last nine months. Besides, Wapda, PTCL and several banks were also facing financial and administrative difficulties, he added. He also lamented that the Lowari tunnel started in 1976 but had not been completed so far.

He said the country’s youth was disappointed due to the corruption of the rulers who had taken the entire nation hostage. Sirajul Haq recalled that a minister in the US had to sell his house for the treatment of his child but the ruling elite in Pakistan had been squandering away hard-earned money of poor masses on their treatments abroad. He lamented that Panama Leaks case had been continuing for a whole year without any progress which showed the state of affairs in the country. Sirajul Haq said he wished that Supreme Court decision was against the corruption and in the best interest of the masses.

The JI chief said Articles 62 and 63 of the constitution were meant to ensure that corrupt people did not return to the assemblies. He wished that the Election Commission had implemented these articles. He said if the present generation failed to build a corruption-free Pakistan, the coming generation would not forgive them. Referring to the new US President Donald Trump, Sirajul Haq said, “Some people are trying to harass us”. However, he said, he was sure that heavens would not fall, and added that there was also a possibility that some good might come out. However, he repeated his suggestion that the Muslim world have a common market, common military and common educational system.

Meanwhile, talking to the central leader of the international Tahafuz e Khatme Nubuwwat Movement, Maulana Allah Wasaya, who called on him at Mansoorah on Saturday, the JI Ameer said that there was complete consensus of the entire Muslim Ummah on the issue of Khatme Nubuwwat and JI had been raising it in the Senate and the National Assembly.

Maulana Allah Wasaya invited him to the APC being held in Islamabad on February 1 in connection with the law relating to the finality of the Holy Prophet (SAW). Sirajul Haq assured JI’s cooperation to the organisers of the conference.

Later, addressing a JI delegation from Sheikhupura district led by JI District Ameer Sarfraz Ahmed, Sirajul Haq said the unjust distribution of resources in the country was leading to poverty, unemployment and lawlessness.