Siraj for widening accountability net

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Senator Siraj-ul-Haq has demanded the Supreme Court to devise a permanent and effective mechanism for accountability and the recovery of the ill-gotten wealth from the plunderers.

Speaking at an international seminar for the delegates from over 20 countries at Mansoora on Sunday, he said the need of the hour was to widen the accountability net and bring to the dock all those named in the Panama Leaks case and the elite getting their bank loans written off.

He said if the public money estimated around 375 billion dollars lying abroad was brought to the country, the masses could be provided basic facilities of education and health besides employment to thousands of the youth. Siraj-ul-Haq said the JI’s campaign against corruption compelled the rulers to come down among the masses.

He said the country was being ruled by a few families. He said the country would not develop without real democracy. He said that overseas Pakistanis were remitting 22 billion dollars annually and they had the right to have a say in the country’s policies. He said if the overseas Pakistanis were not given the right to vote in the next elections, the elections would not be complete. 

He said the JI leadership had held meetings with the delegates from abroad for three days and had decided to highlight the Kashmir issue at world level. He said neither the PPP nor the PML-N government had framed any policy for the overseas Pakistanis that could have encouraged the immigrants.  

To a question from the media, the JI chief said the court verdict must be respected. He said those refusing to bow to the court verdict were weakening the judiciary and paving way for dictatorship. However, he said the nation firmly stood by the judiciary. 

The JI chief decried the resort to abuses and foul language in politics and said neither Islam nor our traditions allowed that. The JI Secretary General, Liaqat Baloch, Hafiz Muhammad Idrees and Abdul Ghaffar Aziz and some foreign delegates also spoke on the occasion.

Meanwhile, Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Liaqat Baloch said former prime minister Nawaz Sharif might be having many secrets in his heart but the JIT had made public all the facts. 

Addressing the Ulema at Mansoora on Sunday, the JI leader said incompetence and corruption of the government itself had opened the door for the interference of the state institutions and added that this should be a lesson for the democratic forces. He said the JI believed in having good relations with the Muslim world and the European countries for the promotion of human values, democratic system and respect and honour of the country and the nation.