Govt urged to allocate more funds for provinces

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has said the PTI government has been pursuing the same harsh economic policies which the previous regimes pursued.

The government, instead of giving relief, multiplied the problems of the common man. The people are facing the flood of price hike while the government is helpless before the mafia sucking the blood of the masses, he said while addressing a JI Central Executive Committee meeting at Mansoora on Wednesday.

JI Secretary General Liaqat Baloch, JI Naib Ameer Hafiz Muhammad Idrees, Prof Muhammad Ibrahim Khan, Asadullah Bhutto, Mian Muhammad Aslam and Rashid Naseem and all the provincial heads were also present.

Sirajul Haq stressed upon the federal government to allocate more funds for the provinces and former FATA. He said that instead of making deductions from the provinces’ funds for FATA, the Centre should grant special package for the development and rehabilitation of the former FATA areas.

He said the government would have to take immediate and practical steps to remove the deprivations of former FATA. He thanked the nation for expressing solidarity with the Kashmiri brethren on February 5. He said the nation would have to stand united and advance towards the goal of the liberation of Kashmir from Indian oppressive hold. He said Pakistan would be complete only when Kashmir was free and became proper part of the country.

Sirajul Haq said Pakistani nation had offered huge sacrifices in the war on terror. He said a peaceful Afghanistan was need of Pakistan. Meanwhile, addressing youth delegations at Mansoora, JI Secretary General Liaqat Baloch said the nation demonstrated unflinching solidarity with the liberation movement of the Kashmiris on February 5. He said Kashmiris’ sacrifices would bear fruit soon. He asked India to learn a lesson from the defeat of Soviet Union and the US in Afghanistan and grant Kashmiris their right to self-determination in line with the UN resolutions.

He said the changing scenario in the region and defeat of NATO and US forces in Afghanistan had forced Indian generals, policy makers and leadership to feel the pressure and their narrative was changing.

He said the solution to Kashmir issue did not lie in oppression and bloodshed. He urged the world community to rise to the occasion and ensure right to self-determination to the Kashmiris.

He said the government had failed to solve the problems of the youth and provide them with respectable jobs and improve the education system. He welcomed the Pakistan Cricket Board’s decision to retain Sarfraz Ahmed as captain of the national team.