MITHI: Senator Sirajul Haq, emir of Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan, has said that his party will file a petition in Supreme Court, seeking action against the people whose names have been exposed by Pandora Papers.

Haq said at Miladun Nabi (Peace be Upon Him) conference organised by his party in Islamkot town on Thursday that they had decided in principle to file the petition in the apex court to bring all robbers of national wealth to justice. His party wanted stern action against all the corrupt whose names had surfaced in all international scams leaked by journalists, he said.

He said that Imran Khan’s government was least interested in taking any action against the corrupt exposed by Pandora Papers as, according to him, some people close to Mr Khan were also found involved in amassing ill-gotten money and depositing it in offshore companies.

He said that if Imran Khan had been sincere and honest he would have kicked out the members of the cabinet the day their names were exposed. The prime minister wanted to save his chair and that was why he constantly deviated from his previous principled stance, he said.

“Imran Khan has once again proved he is not a man of his word,” he remarked and asked him to behave like a mature leader as he pretended to be before coming to power.

“It is prime duty of every patriotic citizen to rise against the people who have plundered public wealth and then siphoned it off to offshore companies,” he said.

Haq came down hard on the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government for shying away from consulting with leaders of opposition parties on important issues of national interest and termed presidential ordinance on extension to NAB chairman a slap on the face of democratic norms.

He warned that bypassing of parliament would prove disastrous for the country since it required mature policies to run affairs of both government and state.

He deplored that rulers had nothing to offer to people of Tharparkar, which was contributing to power generation for the country from its huge coal reserves.

He lashed out at executives and officials of mining firms for showing indifference towards locals and warned them to stop meting out step-motherly treatment to real owners of mines and minerals.

He said that it was right of Tharparkar people to get drinking water and demanded they be supplied water through pipeline from irrigation canals. “Certain parts of Tharparkar can be easily irrigated by constructing an irrigation canal,” he said.

He expressed deep grief over increasing incidents of suicide and deaths of infants in government hospitals and said that his party had launched a number of charitable projects in Thar which were serving people without discrimination of caste, colour and creed.

BADIN: Haq demanded genuine accountability for all capitalists, former and present rulers, ex-judges and generals whose names were exposed by Pandora Papers and disclosed that efforts were being made to save skins of tainted advisers and ministers who should have been sacked from their positions immediately.

He said at a reception and later told media persons at DC Chowk that PPP and PML-N and those who had brought them to power were responsible for the economic catastrophe afflicting this country.

He praised media for exposing names of the corrupt through Pandora Papers, Wiki and Panama Leaks and demanded Chief Justice of Pakistan take suo motu action to establish a commission of inquiry to investigate 700 names of the corrupt in Pandora Papers and 436 people whose names had appeared in Panama Leaks.

THATTA: JI emir has said that no poor and common man’s name has been found on Pandora papers and once again most of the names in the scandal belong to PML-N, PPP and PTI, who are now staging a political farce but are actually protecting each other’s interests.

Haq said at a big gathering of party activists during a stopover in Makli before resuming journey to Islamkot on Thursday that a corrupt coterie had held politics and government hostage in Pakistan for years.

He said that his party was sincerely striving to enforce Nizam-i-Mustafa in Pakistan as it was the only system that could pull the country and its population out of crises and restore rights of the downtrodden.

He said the poor and the have-nots wielded no weapon but they had power of vote and if they joined hands with Jamaat-i-Islami the party would rid them of all miseries. PPP had held power in Sindh since long but instead of resolving chronic issues of the province the party had further increased them, he said.

He said that Thatta had a glowing past as capital of Sindh and hub of academic activities but it had not been provided facilities of education, health and employment since independence. Why was there abject poverty in Thatta, whether people of this district were not paying taxes, he asked.

He claimed that JI would provide Roti, Kapra or Makaan to people after coming to power. People of Pakistan and political parties had rejected extension to NAB chairman, he said.

He said that the day when the poor and genuine leaders of people reached parliament they would make laws to resolve the country’s problems.

Haq, accompanied by JI leaders Asadullah Bhutto, Mohammad Hussain Meha­nati, Dada Adam Gandhro and others later left for Islamkot in a motorcade.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2021