PESHAWAR: Jamaat-i-Islami emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman on Wednesday urged the Taliban government in Kabul to not allow militants to use the Afghan soil for carrying out attacks against Pakistan.

“The Afghan Taliban should act responsibly and their soil should not be used against Pakistan at any cost. Pakistani people should not be made to pay for the decisions made by some individuals,” Mr Rehman told the Tribal Aman Jirga hosted by his party here.

The JI chief said that Pakistan had hosted Afghan refugees for decades.

He said both countries couldn’t afford bitter relations.

Mr Rehman said that militancy enabled foreign agencies to play their dirty games, and Pakistani soil had previously turned into a battleground of Indian and American intelligence agencies.

He said that his party did not want a clash between Pakistani people and its army at any cost.

The JI emir said that it would be good for everyone if all state institutions restricted themselves to designated roles.

He said that all stakeholders should talk to each other for the sake of peace.

Mr Rehman said that during the Pakistan Peoples Party’s rule, President Asif Ali Zardari signed a requisition to deploy the army in the country, while former President Arif Alvi also signed the same document during the PTI government with the Sindh Assembly endorsing it.

He said that politicians were responsible for the military’s interference in politics.

The JI chief said that in order to ensure a corruption-free Pakistan, all corrupt people, including those from the army, should be held accountable.

He said that his party supported action against former ISI chief Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed for overstepping his authority, but it would be a political move to act against the former spymaster only.

Mr Rehman said that the army’s job was to protect the country’s border, while the police was tasked with ensuring internal security.

He, however, said that if the army continued doing policing duty, the situation was unlikely to improve.

The JI emir also said that military operation was not a solution to law and order crisis and that a new operation would suggest that all such past operations had resulted in failure.

He asked KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur to pay attention to his province instead of focusing on Islamabad and Lahore.

Mr Rehman said that the chief minister should focus on serving his people and it would also do well for his party.

He also called for development work in merged tribal districts and Balochistan on an emergency basis.

The JI chief said that the issue of enforced disappearances in Balochistan deserved attention.

“The writ of the state can’t be established at gunpoint and making people disappear cannot be justified at all,” he said.

Mr Rehman said that a women’s medical university should be set up in merged tribal districts and attention should be paid to improve the region’s infrastructure and create employment opportunities for youth.

He said that a jirga should be constituted under the patronage of the government to resolve issues.

The JI chief said that former military dictator General Pervez Musharraf’s U-turn on Afghanistan over American pressure led to militancy in the peaceful tribal region.

He said those who pushed Pakistan into the US-led war against terrorism were responsible for the current security situation in the region that had so far claimed around 100,000 lives in the country.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2024