KARACHI: Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Ameer Hafiz Naeemur Rehman on Wednesday said the party would continue its public campaign against the petrol levy “bhatta tax”, independent power producers (IPPs) and rising inflation, and would announce its future line of action after the September 3 countrywide shutter-down strike.
Addressing a press conference at Idara Noor-e-Haq along with JI Karachi Ameer Munem Zafar Khan, Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said the government would have to abolish the petrol levy tax and cancel what he called anti-people agreements with IPPs.
He said the September 3 shutter-down strike would be “historic”, adding that options available to the party included a call for a long march to Islamabad, sit-ins in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and expanding sit-ins across the country.
The JI chief said sit-ins continued on the 18th day in all four provincial capitals. He said the Peshawar sit-in had turned into five sit-ins, the Hyderabad sit-in had been continuing for 10 days, and protests were also under way in cities of interior Sindh as well as areas such as Chitral.
He said public participation in the sit-ins and protests was increasing continuously. According to him, the trader community across the country, including Karachi, had announced “extraordinary and unanimous” support for the JI movement against the petrol levy and IPPs and for the September 3 countrywide strike.
Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said the manner in which IPPs were being favoured and the levy tax was being collected was a major injustice to the people, and remaining silent over it was also an injustice. He appealed to political workers of all parties, whether in the government or opposition, to become part of what he described as a public struggle that reflected the voice of 250 million people.
He said every citizen was facing severe hardship due to expensive petrol and electricity, but the government, ministers and ruling parties were not interested in public issues and inflation.
The JI chief said his party had created awareness among people about how, in his words, rulers were “robbing” their pockets. He said there were 25 million motorcycles and about five million four-wheel vehicles in Pakistan, adding that motorcycles were the transport of poor and ordinary citizens. He said because rulers had not created a public transport system, several members of a family were compelled to travel on a single motorcycle.
He claimed that rulers were collecting Rs130 per litre from this poor segment in the name of levy and other taxes, terming it sheer injustice. He said the rulers’ lavish spending, protocols and fuel expenses were being borne by poor people.
Speaking about IPPs, Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said more than Rs1,700 billion had been paid to some IPPs for electricity that, according to him, they had not even generated. He alleged that this money had been taken from the pockets of poor people.
He said many people linked with IPPs in the country had registered their companies outside Pakistan and did not pay income tax on their earnings in Pakistan, calling it a grave injustice to the people of Pakistan.
He said rulers could not make a poor man tax-free, but large sugar mafias importing sugar worth billions of rupees were granted tax-free status, which, according to him, had resulted in severe inflation in the country.
Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said that before JI’s campaign against IPPs, people used to say no action could be taken against them because they would approach international courts. He claimed the party’s struggle had benefited the national exchequer by billions of rupees and that electricity prices had come down due to JI’s sit-ins.
He said rulers repeatedly claimed they would reduce inflation, but according to sources, inflation in the country had increased by 11.2 per cent.
On 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 PPP seats 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, but had been given dozens of seats.
He said “Form-47 rulers” could not make such major decisions regarding administrative units and the division of provinces. He called upon the MQM and PPP to end what he described as their “noora kushti” and not create distances and hatred between Sindhis and Muhajirs.
JI Karachi Naib Ameers Saifuddin Advocate, Raja Arif Sultan and Muslim Pervez, Karachi Secretary Taufeequddin Siddiqui, Sindh Assembly member Mohammad Farooq and Information Secretary Zahid Askari were also present at the press conference.
