Shujaat, Siraj exchange views on epidemic

LAHORE : Pakistan Muslim League (Q) President and former caretaker Prime Minister Chaudhry Shujaat Husain rang up Jamaat e Islami ameer Senator Sirajul Haq on Saturday. The two leaders exchanged views on the prevailing situation in the country after the epidemic. Shujaat Hussain lauded the efforts of JI workers in providing essential relief items to poor people suffering from the hardships of lockdown.

Earlier, addressing the provincial leadership of JI Youth through video link from Mansoorah, Senator Sirajul Haq said it was great injustice the PTI government was charging its citizens returning from abroad in the name of expenses of keeping them in quarantine. He said these people deserved every possible help in the present situation since they had suffered in the lockdown in foreign countries without jobs, money and resources. Siraj urged upon the government to reimburse the fare and hotel expenses charged from the overseas Pakistanis returning to the country after being left stranded in the foreign countries due to lockdown.

Siraj said government was providing financial support only to those who possessed Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) cards, while a larger number of the poor were not registered with BISP and deprived of PTI government’s relief package as well and were being totally ignored. He said the government was not willing to learn from its mistakes, it was not fulfilling its promises to the nation and implementing its announcements. He said hundreds of thousands of daily wage earners, labourers and farmers in the country were still awaiting government’s financial help. The government gave them a new hope every day but the next day, there was nothing for them again.

Meanwhile, JI naib ameer Liaqat Baloch, in a statement, strongly condemned government’s failure to provide safety kits and other basic facilities to the doctors, nurses and paramedical staff fighting against the coronavirus at the front lines. He said in the beginning, government had lauded the services of the medics but now they were being subjected to baton charge on demanding protective kits.