Self-reliance vital for better economy: Siraj

LAHORE
JAMAAT-e-Islami Ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has alleged that rulers were overjoyed on the approval of IMF loan on the most humiliating terms and heavy interest rate, warning that such loans were actually paid back by the poor in the shape of heavy taxes and never helped to improve country’s economy.
Country’s economy could improve only by ridding of the clutches of IMF and World Bank, and marching towards self-reliance, he said while delivering Friday sermon at Mansoora Masjid.
Sirajul Haq said the founding fathers had established Pakistan as a mosque but unfortunately, this mosque could not get an Imam so far. The country’s polity was based on western democracy; its economy was interest-based while the education system conceived by Lord Macaulay was still in vogue in the country. For the last 68 years, the country had been in the hands of political actors due to which the country and the nation had lost their destination. As for the present government, nobody knew its intentions, he remarked.
JI chief said despite having accepted Islam as the state religion and Allah Almighty as the sole Sovereign, the rulers were frequently rebelling against the Almighty by acting according to their free will, and had reduced themselves to slaves of western masters. As for the masses, they were there only to pay taxes and utility bills to allow the luxuries of the rich to be continued, he added. Sirajul Haq said the bloodletting in Karachi was continuing only due to the patronage of the criminals by the rulers and the political figures. Some people who should have been in jail were being honoured by the rulers. Had the culprits behind the killings of 12 May and the Baldia Town factory been hauled up, the tragedy of 13 May could not have occurred. He said around 24,000 peaceful citizens of Karachi, including dozens of security personnel, had been gunned down in the port city. He said according to the security institutions, the bus attackers were highly trained and wanted to kill maximum number of people. But despite such a big act of terrorism, the rulers were not ready to take any step on their own but were looking up to the US. He reiterated that in Karachi, thousands of people had been recruited in government departments, especially the police, on political grounds, due to which the police force had failed to curb crimes. He said the JI was being blamed for the women voters’ abstaining from voting in PK-95. He asked the critics to explain who had stopped the women from voting in the 2008 elections which the JI had boycotted while the PPP, the ANP, the PML and other political parties had participated.
He urged the masses to support the JI for steering the country out of the present crisis, and solving the problems facing the country and the nation.