Baldia Town tragedy a test case for govt: Siraj

LAHORE
JAMAAT-e-Islami Ameer Sirajul Haq has said the nation is looking up to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif for justice to Baldia Town factory arson victims.
If the gruesome tragedy of burning to death of 259 factory workers was politicised, no one would believe in the slogans for uprooting terror, he said while talking to media at Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital. He visited the hospital for inquiring after the health of Kisan Board’s Provincial General Secretary Arslan Khan Khakwani.
Sirajul Haq said if JIT report was buried under the files, it would amount to denying justice to victims’ families and would provoke worker community. He said it was a test case for government because responsible official agencies had clearly named MQM responsible for the tragedy. Now it was to be seen if the government considered the burning alive of 259 workers an act of terrorism or not.
He said if PPP took MQM as its ally in Sindh government for the sake of few Sindh assembly members, it would mean jeopardising the objective of eliminating terror because of terrorists sitting in the government itself. He said whosoever committed a crime, whether he was a political worker or otherwise, should be brought to book. He said Baldia Town tragedy was the worst incident of terrorism like Peshawar Army school tragedy and there was no reason to make a distinction between the two. He said entire nation wanted peace but peace could be established only if all were treated equally and no distinction was made between the commoner and the influential.
He said an ethnic organisation had not been allowing the government to function simply on the strength of a few assembly members and Karachi had become a slaughterhouse. Terrorist activities and target killings had been continuing in the port city for over three decades and around 24,000 citizens, including doctors, journalists and lawyers, had been gunned down. Even the womenfolk had not been spared.
He said JI was determined to root out corruption-based system and when came to power, it would divert the plundered Rs15 billion per annum to public welfare projects. He was sure that masses would reject the corrupt politicians in next elections and vote for JI candidates who were competent, patriotic and honest. He said he was sure that an Islamic revolution was around the corner.
APC: The Jamaat-e-Islami will host an All Parties Conference at Mansoora on Tuesday (today) on preparing an agreed draft for prohibiting incidents of blasphemy in the wake of the recent publication of blasphemous caricatures in a French journal.
The APC will be chaired by JI ameer Sirajul Haq and participated in by top leadership of various political and religious parties of the country. Invitations have also been sent to representatives of civil society, lawyers, students and the youth.
Discussion: A roundtable discussion on Monday reached the consensus that effective and comprehensive policies were needed for the development and welfare of women living in different parts of Pakistan in different conditions.
Analyst Salman Abid, Farah Khan, MPA Mrs Farzana Butt, Prof Dr Iftikhar Baig, Abdul Malik, Samson Salamat and Col (R) Farrukh were among the attendees.