Siraj raps govt over failure to bring back looted wealth

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Sirajul Haq has said the government’s failure to fulfill its promises of bringing back the looted public money stashed by Pakistani elites in foreign banks exposed its insincerity.

The PTI government not only failed to recover a single penny held by Pakistanis through fiduciaries or wealth managers in Swiss and other foreign banks, but also disappointed the nation on other economic fronts, he said while addressing a gathering at Mansoora on Saturday. Despite the passage of one year, he said, the government was still directionless and not able to clarify and elaborate its future strategies and policies on the economy.

Demanding the government inform the nation on what conditions it had received loans from the IMF and other countries, he said details about the spending of the loans should also be made public.

He said people were not satisfied with one year’s performance of the government. During the last 12 months, he said, over one million became jobless and the prices of medicines, gas and petrol were not in the reach of the common man. The US dollar exchange rate and inflation, Siraj added, went all times high and there was no check on corruption and nepotism. Sirajul Haq asked the PTI government to take immediate steps to control skyrocketing inflation and rising unemployment.

On the Kashmir situation, he said the JI was organizing a “Save Kashmir March” in Peshawar on Sunday (August 25) to express solidarity with the people of the held region. He said a clear message would be given to India in the rally that people of Pakistan were standing with their Kashmiri brothers and sisters and they would go to every extent for their help.

Meanwhile, JI Information Secretary Qaisar Sharif condemned the cutting off of all communication links of Indian occupied Kashmir with the outside world, saying Kashmiris had suffered curfew as millions of people were starving, languishing and suffering without medical aid in complete blackout.

In a statement from Mansoora, he said phone, internet and media was completely banned in the occupied valley and asked the world to shun its silence over human rights violations in IOK.