KARACHI: Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Ameer Hafiz Naeemur Rehman has said the party will continue its public movement against the petrol levy “bhatta tax”, the IPPs mafia and rising inflation, and will announce its next line of action after the complete nationwide shutter-down strike on September 3.
Addressing a press conference at Idara Noor-e-Haq on Wednesday along with JI Karachi Ameer Munem Zafar Khan, he said the government would have to abolish the petrol levy “bhatta tax” and cancel what he termed anti-people agreements with independent power producers.
Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said the September 3 strike would be historic. He added that the options before Jamaat-e-Islami included a call for a long march towards Islamabad, sit-ins in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and expanding sit-ins across the country.
He said sit-ins were continuing in all four provincial capitals for the 18th day on Wednesday. According to him, the Peshawar sit-in had expanded into five sit-ins, the Hyderabad sit-in had entered its 10th day, and protests were also continuing in cities of interior Sindh as well as in areas such as Chitral. He said public participation in sit-ins and protests was steadily increasing.
The JI chief said the trader community in Karachi and across the country had extended extraordinary and unanimous support to the party’s movement against the petrol levy “bhatta” and IPPs, as well as to the September 3 nationwide strike.
He said the manner in which IPPs were being favoured and the levy was being collected was a major injustice to the people. “Remaining silent over this is also an injustice,” he said, urging political workers of all parties, whether in government or opposition, to become part of the public struggle. He said the movement represented the voice of 250 million people, as every citizen was badly affected by expensive petrol and electricity.
Hafiz Naeemur Rehman criticised the government, ministers and ruling parties, saying they had no interest in the people’s problems or inflation. He said Jamaat-e-Islami had created awareness among the masses about how rulers were taking money out of their pockets, and that this awareness had now reached every child in the country.
He said Pakistan had 25 million motorcycles and around five million four-wheel vehicles. Motorcycles, he said, were the transport of the poor and ordinary citizens. Due to the failure of rulers to establish a public transport system, several members of a family were forced to travel on one motorcycle. He said the government was collecting Rs130 per litre from this poor segment in the name of levy and other taxes, which he called sheer injustice.
He said the lavish spending of rulers showed no sign of ending, while the burden of their protocols and fuel expenses was borne by the poor. He alleged that a few IPPs had been paid more than Rs1,700 billion for electricity they had not even produced, and that this money had been taken from the pockets of poor people.
The JI chief said many people associated with IPPs operating in Pakistan had registered their companies outside the country and did not pay income tax on their earnings in Pakistan. He termed this a grave injustice to the Pakistani people.
He said rulers could not make the poor man tax-free, but big sugar mafias importing sugar worth billions of rupees were given tax-free treatment, resulting in severe inflation in the country.
Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said that before Jamaat-e-Islami’s campaign against IPPs, people used to say no action could be taken against them because they would approach international courts. He claimed that as a result of the party’s struggle, the national exchequer had benefited by billions of rupees, and electricity prices had been reduced due to JI sit-ins.
He said rulers repeatedly claimed they would reduce inflation, but according to sources, inflation in the country had increased by 11.2 percent.
Responding to questions regarding administrative units and the division of provinces, Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said there was no objection to creating administrative units and dividing provinces within the framework of the Constitution.
He asked Bilawal Zardari to show Form-45s for the seven seats of the PPP from Karachi. He also said the MQM had not won even one of Karachi’s 5,500 polling stations and more than 20,000 booths, yet it was given dozens of seats. He said rulers based on Form-47 could not take such major decisions about administrative units and the division of provinces.
He urged the MQM and PPP to end what he called their “fixed match” and not create distances and hatred between Sindhis and Muhajirs.
JI Karachi vice ameers Saifuddin Advocate, Raja Arif Sultan and Muslim Pervez, Karachi Secretary Taufiquddin Siddiqui, Sindh Assembly member Mohammad Farooq and Information Secretary Zahid Askari were also present at the press conference.
