HYDERABAD: Jamaat-i-Islami emir Sirajul Haq has said that Pakistan Peoples Party wants to perpetuate its rule in Sindh with the help of rigging and now hurdles are being created in the election of JI’s mayor in Karachi despite the fact that people have reposed their trust in the party.

He vowed to ensure his party’s mayor was installed in the metropolis and said it were not people who had rejected JI’s mayoral candidate but the party’s own weakness was to blame for its failure to reach electorates in an adequate manner.

He was talking to journalists at a reception hosted in his honour by Sindh Abadgar Board leader Syed Nadeem Shah, and later addressing a Khatam-i-Bukhari ceremony at Riazul Uloom madressah in Usman Shah village near here late on Monday evening.

He said that only JI had the ability to rid Pakistan of the economic and political crises and declared the capitalist system was the root-cause of widespread destruction. The usury-based system always harmed the economy as it always concentrated wealth in a few hands, he said.

Claims hurdles being put in election of JI’s mayor in Karachi

Haq urged ulema to play their role to thwart the usury-based system and protect ideological frontiers of the country. A country as blessed as Pakistan had been destroyed by maladministration and corruption, he said.

He said that ulema must protect ideological frontiers of the country and counter those who were promoting obscenity and vulgarity. “We are very fortunate to have a system prescribed by the divine writ and the Prophet (PBUH). It is obligatory upon seminaries to promote Islamic teachings because parochialism has harmed Islam, which does not have any room for sectarianism and prejudice,” he said. He lamented that it was an irony that governments allocated a budget for organising musical nights but it had no allocations for seminaries. The JI would make allocations for madressah in the national budget when it came to power, he said, adding that 3.1 million students were getting free education in seminaries.

He said that JI did not believe in a class-based system and it would raise a society that would mark the beginning of Muslim renaissance. Pakistan was a divine gift and every citizen had to struggle to make it a true Islamic welfare state, he said. He claimed that if the country was mired in economic or political crisis today at least seminary students or ulema were not responsible for it. “Babus are responsible for the deepening crisis as they consider themselves more competent for emulating Englishmen,” he said.

Haq said that these guys had set records of corruption and had plundered the national wealth with both hands. If only they transferred their ill-gotten money back to bank acco-unts in the country then Pakistan could easily get rid of its mountains of debt, he said.

He said that only sincere and able men could save the country and JI had such a leadership that could perform this feat. Those who had taken ‘turns’ to occupy power had burdened the country with loans and now even the alliance of 13 parties had failed to rid the country of economic and political crises, he said.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2023