Jamaat following Muttahida by spreading ethnic divide in Karachi, says Ghani

The protest banners displayed by the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) in its sit-in outside the Sindh Assembly show that it is attempting to spread ethnic divide in the city and rest of the province.

Sindh Information and Labour Minister Saeed Ghani expressed the opinion to this effect on Saturday while talking to media persons during his visit to the Karachi Press Club to meet and greet its newly elected office-bearers and members of the governing body.

He remarked that the way the JI was doing agitation on the issue of the newly-passed Sindh Local Government (Amendment) Law 2021 on ethnic grounds showed that the party had the desire to replace the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and such an attempt was objectionable.

He, however, clarified that the Sindh government had no objection whatsoever against the JI’s protest sit-in continuing outside the Sindh Assembly, saying that all the concerned political parties had the democratic right to stage processions and rallies on such issues.

Ghani maintained that Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, and he himself had repeatedly said that a law passed by the assembly should be considered a holy scripture as it was always open to improvements and amendments. “We in the past held negotiations with the Jamaat-e-Islami and we are ready to do the same again.”

The information minister also criticised the JI for supporting military dictators in the past. The political parties that had sided with dictators in the past had always a bleak future in sight, he said. “Everybody knows how Abdul Sattar Afghani became the mayor and Naimatullah Khan the nazim of Karachi,” he remarked.

He reiterated the stance of the Sindh government that the passage of the local government amendment bill did not mean that a new local government law had been enacted in Sindh. He said the new amendment bill was passed in order to improve the Sindh Local Government Act 2013 to further the process of devolution of powers to the grassroots level.

Ghani said that after the new law, the Karachi mayor would chair the new city-wide solid waste management agency to be established by the Sindh government and the mayor would also be the co-chair of the Karachi Waste and Sewerage Board. He said the elected local government representatives in the new setup would get access to the affairs of 10 different provincial departments.

The information minister made it clear that the Article 140-A of the Constitution of Pakistan called for devolving political, administrative and financial powers to the local government and the same authority was available to the municipal agencies of Sindh.

Commenting on the Murree tragedy, Ghani said a criminal case should be lodged against the Punjab government and relevant federal ministers as no ban was timely imposed when hundreds of thousands of people travelled towards the tourist spot whose roads did not have the capacity to handle more than 5,000 vehicles at a time.

He said a criminal case should be lodged against those federal ministers who had held out the flawed view that a large influx of tourists going to hill stations showed improvement in the general economic conditions.

He said criminal negligence shown by the relevant authorities and administration resulted in the tragic deaths of 21 tourists.

Ghani also called for Prime Minister Imran Khan to step down after the revelation of the recent probe into foreign funding case that financial irregularities to the tune of billions of rupees had been committed to receive funds for the ruling party.

He said the PM should resign as otherwise, he would influence investigations into the case.

‘Cracks in PPP’s ranks’

Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman has claimed that cracks have surfaced in the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party in Sindh over the issue of the disputed local government law.

He said while speaking to the participants of his party’s protest sit-in, which entered its ninth day outside the Sindh Assembly. A large number of students from schools and colleges, elected representatives, delegations of various trade associations, and religious scholars visited the sit-in to show solidarity with the protesters.

The JI will also stage demonstrations across the country today (Sunday) to express solidarity with the sit-in participants, while the party’s secretary-general, Liaquat Baloch, will visit the sit-in camp in Karachi today.

Rehman said Karachi deserves a megacity government setup and the JI has held the sit-in for the sake of future generations in the city as well as for other cities of the province. He added that the scope of the protest would be expanded across the city and a schedule in this regard would be announced soon.

The JI leader said Sindh ministers were asking for dialogue and the party responded to them positively. “The JI is open to dialogue and the protest drive would be ended if the PPP government repeals the black law, empowers the city government setup and announces direct elections for city mayor.”

Addressing the students, Rehman shed light on the deteriorating situation of the public education sector in Sindh and the role of the PPP government in this regard.

He also led funeral prayers in absentia for the victims of the Murree tragedy. Later, he condemned the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab governments for their “careless attitude”, which, he alleged, resulted in the tragedy.

On Friday, JI central chief Sirajul Haq had visited the sit-camp where he said the PPP’s Sindh government had taken away the powers of mayors and local government authorities and handed them to the chief minister. “How much more power does the CM Sindh want to accumulate?” asked Haq.

He appealed to the entire Pakistan to come forward on Sunday to show solidarity with the people of Karachi in protest against the controversial local government law. “The JI’s struggle, be it in Karachi, Gwadar, Islamabad or Chitral, is not against any political party; it is against injustice, the system of infidelity and oppression,” he said.

Haq said the JI’s worst opponents, including Pervez Musharraf and then former MQM governor Ishratul Ibad, had acknowledged the services rendered by the JI’s Naimatullah Khan for Karachi. Comparing the domestic and international situations, he said the modern world was conquering new skies, while in Karachi pipelines for sewerage and water supply were passing through the same channels.

He said that Faisalabad, Sialkot, and other cities of Punjab had become developed, asking why Larkana, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Jamshoro and other cities could not make progress despite the continuous rule of the PPP in Sindh. “Only corruption thrived in the cities of Sindh.”

Referring to the election of the Peshawar mayor, he said that it was a right of Karachi’s residents to have their mayor elected through the direct vote.

Former Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee chairman Mufti Muneebur Rehman, former Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) chairman Nazim F Haji, the All Karachi Traders Ittihad's chief Atiq Mir, Ulema Council central leader Maulana Zaffar Azad and the Pakistan Business Forum’s Kamil Multani were prominent among the people who visited the sit-in.