Economic Corridor not be made controversial: Siraj

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) amir Senator Sirajul Haq has expressed hope that the federal government would take the masses into confidence regarding the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and would not allow the multi-billion development plan to become controversial.
Addressing a public meeting at Jandol in connection with the election campaign for by-election in PK-95 on Sunday, he said that the government should clarify the route of the economic corridor and arrange extensive consultation at national level in this respect.
He said that keeping any segment of the society in the dark on this project would create reservations and doubts which would not only harm the mega project but also undermine national unity. He said that the Kashgar-Gwadar route of the CPEC should not be made controversial like the Kalabagh Dam and Malakand and Chitral be included in the route.
Sirajul Haq said that India, Pakistan’s sworn enemy, was deeply worried about the strengthening of the Pak-China friendship. With the signing of the $46 billion agreements between the two countries, New Delhi had widened the network of its conspiracies against this country and had activated its agents for making these projects controversial.
Therefore, the government should promptly arrange a national level consultation on the highly sensitive issue in order to remove all the misgivings in the mind of the people in this regard, so that the ambitious project could go ahead with national consensus.
He said that the JI was struggling for the supremacy of the law and the Constitution and merit. He said the fate of the nation could not be changed through the rule of any party or individual. It could be changed only with the enforcement of the rule of the Holy Quran and the Sunnah for which the JI was struggling. He said those ruling the country for the last 68 years had only added to the problems of the masses. The ruling elite considered the general public as insects and were responsible for the poverty, illiteracy and unemployment in the country, he added.
He expressed the hope that the electorate in the area would vote for the JI candidate in the by-election on May 7 and added that as long as the masses did not rise against the corrupt and oppressive tyrants, their problems could not be solved.
Referring to the Press Freedom Day, the JI chief said that Pakistan had become insecure for the journalist community and scores of journalists had lost their lives in the country while performing their professional duties. The rulers, both of the past and at present, had done nothing for the security of the journalists.
He said that the JI MNAs had moved a Bill for the security of the journalists in the National Assembly. The Bill demanded that the obstacles being faced by the journalists in the performance of their duties be removed; payment of compensation to the families of the newsmen killed while performing their duties be paid; arrangements for the education of their children at state expense besides adequate financial help be arranged.