KARACHI: Central Chief of Jamaat-e-Islami, Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman on Wednesday warned the federal government of a “full scale” countrywide agitation if its protest sit-in scheduled for July 26 in Islamabad was “sabotaged”.
“The JI is always unpleased to take over the route of civil disobedience in the country but is surely determined to exercise its rights,” he told lawyers of the Karachi Bar Association at Jinnah Auditorium.
The sit-in is aimed to help being a relief for 250 million people in the country, he said and alerted the ruling coalition to an anti-government movement if it made any sorts of attempts to disrupt the protesters in Islamabad next Friday.
The JI is pondering on all the possible options including strikes, nationwide shutdowns and boycott of electricity bills, he said that “if the government fails to admit initial demands”.
Hafiz Naeem reaffirmed his party’s peaceful democratic struggle for solving the political problems, saying that the government has no justification to govern the nation if it denies the constitutional rights to the public.
“The sit-in will stay till its logical conclusion,” he vowed, saying that the government should scale back all “illogical and unjust” taxation burdening the poor nation especially the salaried employees.
He pledged that his supporters will continue the just struggle aimed at pressuring the ruling coalition into scraping the cruel clause of capacity charges in the agreement with IPPs, he also called it “unjust”.
“The nation is not going to pay the IPPs Rs 2,800 billion,” the JI chief said, recalling that the ruling PML-N had inked the unjust and cruel agreement with the IPPs in 1994, which also saw a nod from the coalition partner PPP afterwards.
Under the cruel agreement, he said that the nation is forced to pay bills for the electricity that has never been produced as the atrocious policies took away billions of rupees illegally of the loyal citizens to feed some IPPs.
Hafiz Naeem sought a decisive move to dislodge the K-Electric - a private power company, which never met with the consumers demands and continues failing to end electricity load shedding over the past 20 years.
He alleged the KE of surviving through “kickbacks”, promising that his party and the nation will resist the cruel slab system of billing. He also blamed the PPP and MQM for the unrest and crimes in the society.
He showed sorry over the worst living standards of the people in Karachi with dearth of civic amenities like water, sewerage system, road infrastructure, besides education, peace and healthcare for decades.
Hafiz Naeem charged Bilawal House for a support to crimes, saying that “unfortunately the traces of crimes lead to Bilawal House”.
He lauded the legal fraternity for their struggles against military rules and resisting to dictators.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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