JI demands special grant for tribal areas

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) central Shoora has demanded the government release the current year’s amount of Rs 1 hundred billion out of the Rs 1000 billion special grant for tribal areas and stressed that it should be spent in consultation with the elected representatives of tribal people.

Through a resolution passed by JI Shoora in its recent meeting, it demanded that present judicial vacuum in the former tribal district should be filled immediately and the courts should be provided necessary logistic support. It demanded that thirty thousand new posts should be created for these district as promised and these posts be duly fulfilled. Shoora called for expediting the rehabilitation of the infrastructure in tribal areas that had been totally destroyed during the operations.

It urged the government and Election Commission to launch a special campaign through the media to create awareness among the tribal people about the importance of the provincial assembly elections. It called for modernising and regularising mining in the former tribal areas and demanded that the local communities should be given fifty per cent of the income from this source.

JI Shoora termed the new local bodies draft as being conflict with the constitution. It called for a through debate of it inside and outside the assembly. The Shoora was of the view that large scale changes in the present law could cause a delay in the local bodies elections and announced that the JI would strongly resist such a move. Shoora also called for the recovery of the missing persons and for producing them before the courts. It also called for opening all trade routes with Afghanistan from Bajaur up to South Waziristan to facilitate traders as well as the people on both sides of the border.

motorcycle-rickshaws: Jamaat-e-Islami has condemned a ban on motorcycle-rickshaws on main city roads and called upon the district administration and traffic police to immediately lift the ban. In a statement here on Thursday, JI Lahore ameer Zikrullah Mujahid said motorcycle-rickshaw was the main source of transport of the common people including workers, students and women folk but they had been badly affected due to the ban. He said citizens faced great hardships due to the stoppages of buses and wagons at far off places. Besides, the fares of buses and wagons were much higher than that of motorcycle-rickshaws. He said the ban on Chingchi rickshaws had rendered thousands of rickshaw drivers jobless and forced them to starve.