PML-N, PPP have no right to criticise NAB, says Siraj

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami chief Sirajul Haq has said the ruling PML-N and opposition’s PPP have no moral justification to raise hue and cry over NAB’s working since they appointed NAB chairman of their own exclusive choice.

“Those ruing the country considered themselves above the law and accountability, and considered power as a goldmine from which they were free to make as much money as they liked,” he said while addressing a public meeting at Zafarwal on Saturday.

Sirajul Haq urged the judiciary to ensure an effective accountability. He said it was the responsibility of courts to set up JITs for probe against all those named in Panama Papers.

The rulers have built palaces for themselves in the country and abroad through plundered wealth, whereas, the masses could hardly pay utility bills and their children were even deprived of primary education. Due to unavailability of health facilities, the poor are dying at hospital doors, he added.

Sirajul Haq said that according to reports of national and international organisations, around five lakh people were suffering from hepatitis and more than 80,000 from cancer.

He said around 88 percent of the people could not get clean drinking water. He said the rulers spent years in Britain and the US but were not ready to follow the public welfare policies of those countries. He said it was an irony that a person disqualified by the court on corruption came to face trial with full protocol in a motorcade on public expenses.

Sirajul Haq said JI wanted to open the corridors of power to the common man. He said if the masses voted JI to power, peasants and factory workers would be made shareholders in the produce of farms and factories.

Every form of exploitation would be stopped, he said. Sirajul Haq said dozens of JI leaders had been in the assemblies and government but there was no corruption spot on them.