Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman announced on Wednesday that the JI had presented its case before the government over the petroleum levy and agreements with independent power producers (IPPs), and now the ball was in the government’s court.
He said the party would march on Islamabad as per its plan on September 20 and warned that the JI’s drive against petroleum levy and IPPs would turn into a government-toppling movement, if the march was blocked.
Addressing the JI’s workers and supporters at the party’s sit-in outside the Governor House on its 32nd day, he said the JI had presented its arguments before the government but the negotiators offered them nothing as yet.
He said the party’s sit-in were continuing in 42 cities across Pakistan and in Karachi the sit-in had turned into a jalsa for the second consecutive day.
“Every child in Pakistan now knows that the government is collecting extortion tax, gangster tax and carrying out economic terrorism. The rulers are imposing gangster tax on the people for their own luxuries,” he said.
Rehman said the petroleum levy had become an issue with which every citizen stood, and the JI’s movement against oppression had united the whole of Pakistan in one chain defeating the conspiracies of divisive groups.
“Now there is only one voice in all of Pakistan that Maryam Nawaz’s plane should be sold,” he asserted.
He went on to allege that the government first allowed what he termed the sugar mafia to import sugar with tax exemption and it was now allowing export of sugar, causing its price to rise.
“Common farmers keep crying, medicines are expensive, urea is expensive, there is rule of feudals, waderas and khans. In an age when the world has reached the moon, haris come barefoot before waderas and touch their feet. Hoarder succeeds and farmer is deprived,” he lamented.
He said Pakistan’s agriculture depended on Punjab, but the company formed by Maryam Nawaz was benefiting while farmers suffered. Poor and middle class were worried as the price of a roti had went up to Rs25, he added.
Criticising Punjab’s education system, he said Maryam had ruined the education system in the province due to which 52 per cent of the children failed. “She has sold 11,000 schools and preparations are under way to sell another 15,000,” the JI chief said.
He said that when the prime minister, who was Maryam’s uncle, was ‘dropping petrol bombs’ daily, the Punjab CM bought a jet worth Rs11bn although she already had a jet. “The nation may die but the extravagances of rulers will not end,” he said.
Targeting the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), he said it had been in power for 18 years in Sindh but in those years, it did even not give slippers to Sindh’s children.
“They do not give grants to universities but meetings are held in Switzerland,” he said. “The elite class makes the public slaves and enjoys luxuries.”
On the IPPs, he claimed that the nation was paying money to set up 125MW plants and also paying interest on it, but the IPP owners did not even pay tax.
He said the JI’s negotiating team led by Liaquat Baloch sat for three hours with the government. “We negotiated in every way, demanded an end to the curse of interest, abolition of petroleum levy. This is a deaf and dumb government but it is not ready to listen. We said come in 1300cc cars but they are not even ready to listen to this,” Rehman said.
He warned the government to remove the containers placed to block the JI’s march. “We are peaceful people. It is our constitutional and democratic right to protest wherever we want, there will be no red zone,” he said.
“Workers should start preparations, dharnas will continue and Islamabad march will also take place,” he said, adding that the JI would announce its Plan A in Lahore on Thursday (today) while Plan B and C would be kept secret.
“We again say rulers should end extravagance, sell planes and recover levy money. Rulers should come in 1300cc cars, these cars will not bite you, neither bounce you out like a spring,” he remarked. Monem Zafar and other JI leaders also addressed the sit-in.
