Siraj asks Mush to return and face cases

LAHORE: Jamaat-i-Islami Ameer  Senator Sirajul Haq has said that dictators had caused the fall of Dhaka while some civilian governments were brought up by generals and they toed dictators’ line. 

Addressing delegations from different countries at the party headquarters Mansoora on Friday, the JI Ameer said that every dictator attacked the Constitution at the first stage which shattered national harmony. He said that the JI wanted the rule of the law and the Constitution and not the rule of individuals or families. He said it was not the era of Moghal rulers or dictatorship, it was the age of democracy.

Sirajul Haq asked former military dictator Pervez Musharraf not to issue statements while sitting abroad and return to Pakistan and face courts.  He said that state institutions which blindly followed the dictates of the rulers without caring for the laws and rules were equally to be blamed for the plunder of public money along with the actual criminals and they too should be hauled up along with the corruption mafia and brought to accountability. 

The NAB, he said, did not have the authority to let off those plundering billions only after receiving a few millions in a plea bargain. He said the state institutions had been putting the national interest at stake only to please a few thugs and demanded that the heads of the institutions should also be hauled up. Sirajul Haq said that the rulers had ignored the objectives for which the country came into being. The rulers neither gave any importance to the ideology upon which the country was created nor did they desire to enforce Islamic injunctions in the affairs of the state, he added. 

"Our rulers worked on the dictation of the world powers and international establishment.   Pakistanis working abroad are the country’s ambassadors all over the world and not allowing them to have a say in the affairs of the state was a great injustice. The JI would continue to raise its voice for the rights of vote of the overseas Pakistanis," he said and exhorted the Pakistan’s embassies all over the world to facilitate the Pakistani immigrants in every possible manner.    

Meanwhile, JI Secretary General Liaqat Baloch has said that the logic behind the army of federal ministers sworn in today was to control different groups within the ruling party and the preparation of elections. 

Addressing a meeting of the JI consultative body at Mansoora on Friday, he said that the large cabinet was a burden on the public exchequer which was already crumbling. The JI leader said that the country was facing numerous challenges both from within and outside. He said the agenda of the democratic forces should be the strict compliance of the constitution, protection of the judiciary’s independence besides the sovereignty of the parliament. He said that any attempt to protect the corrupt mafia by any means would have disastrous consequences. He said that the accountability process should not be confined to the Sharif family and all those named in the Panama leaks and those involved in mega scandals and written-off loans should also be hauled up and dealt with under the law. Liaqat Baloch said that besides continuing accountability, the challenges before the interim prime minister were to protect the democratic system and to implement electoral reforms.