Govt has failed to bring about change: JI

LAHORE : Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Senator Sirajul Haq left for Saudi Arabia on Saturday for a three-week visit during which he would also perform Umra.

Before his departure, Sirajul Haq nominated JI Secretary General Liaqat Baloch as acting JI ameer. Liaqat Baloch took oath of acting JI ameer at a simple ceremony. Sirajul Haq is scheduled to return home on April 16.

Later, while addressing the participants in a JI central workshop at Mansoorah, Acting JI Ameer Liaqat Baloch said the government which came to power with the slogan of change had not been able to bring about any change.

Baloch said an exploitative system had been thrust on the country in the name of politics and democracy.

The self-styled and so-called political parties had not allowed the democratic system to flourish in the country, he said, adding that instead of grooming their workers on political lines, the parties had been using their workers only for sycophancy and selfish interests. Liaqat Baloch said JI was striving to change the exploitative system and bring about a truly democratic system in line with the teachings of the holy Quran and the Sunnah. He said the JI believed in bringing about the change through real political and democratic process and not by force.

Elections were held and the people exercised their right of vote but the same old faces came up through different parties, he said. The country’s economy and its educational and judicial systems have reached the point of destruction. He alleged that incompetent and selfish political elements in the country had done an incalculable harm to the national harmony and unity in pursuit of their selfish ends.

Liaqat Baloch said that complete national unity was required to face Indian Prime Minister Modi’s jingoism but Prime Minister Imran Khan was hurting the national unity through his speeches.

The nation, he said, wanted across the board accountability. He said had the rulers been sincere in accountability, they would have put the accountability process on transparent lines instead of making it controversial.

They would have recovered billions of the rupees from the plunderers. He asked why the remaining 436 persons named in the Panama leaks had not been brought to the dock.

Liaqat Baloch said that the Punjab government was not delivering but the prime minister was all praise for it. He said the burden of loans on the country was increasing but the government was seeking more loans against its promise of austerity and self reliance.

JI Naib Ameer Hafiz Muhammad Idrees said the Islamophobia and enmity towards Islam was the real cause behind the incidents of massacre of Muslims in the non-Muslim countries.

He said the “white supremacist” terrorism in two mosques of New Zealand was a scar on the face of humanity. However, he said, it was tragic that whenever a non-Muslim committed the act of terrorism, the champions of modern civilisation termed the killer mentally ill.

Hafiz Muhammad Idrees said the entire Muslim Ummah was grieved over the New Zealand massacre.