CHARSADDA: Rejecting the proposed constitutional package, Jamaat-i-Islami former central emir Sirajul Haq said on Friday the government was taking important decisions ‘behind closed doors’.

Addressing a training workshop held for party workers at Islamic Centre here, he said both the central and provincial governments had failed to mitigate sufferings of people.

About the recently held Shanghai Cooperation Organisation conference, Mr Haq said the event would not bring any economic development to the country. He said Pakistan was in grip of debt, but the government was taking more and more loans ‘for its own luxury’.

He said the judicial system in the country had paralysed and institutions overstepped their domains. He said despite successive governments of PML-N in Punjab, PPP in Sindh and PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the three parties had not been able to take any practical steps for people’s welfare.

Ex-JI chief proposes KP’s new name as ‘Pakhtunistan’

Mr Haq said the province should be renamed as ‘Pakhtunistan’ instead of changing its name as ‘Pakhtunkhwa’. He said notwithstanding change of nomenclature from then North West Frontier Province to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Pakhtun nation was ‘still being oppressed’.

The Jamaat’s former chief claimed his party had introduced Islamic banking system in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when it was in the coalition government in the province, making the province economically stable. However, he said now the province owed Rs1,100 billion in debt due to ‘incompetent’ provincial governments.

He also expressed his concern over the ‘criminal’ silence of 58 Islamic countries over the issue of Palestine. He asked the army chief to play his role in international affairs because “Israel only feared Pakistan”.

AWARENESS SEMINAR: Speakers at a seminar held here on Friday termed lack of mutual family conversations, bad company and reluctance to face social challenges as the main causes behind growing drug use in youth.

Anti-Narcotics Force and directorate of student affairs at Bacha Khan University, Charsadda, organised the awareness seminar.

Bacha Khan University Vice-Chancellor Prof Zahid Hussain and deputy director ANF Malik Wajid Yusuf were the guests of honour.

A large number of students, including girls, also participated in the seminar.

Mr Zahid and Mr Yusuf said drug dealers were ruining future generations and society as a whole. They pointed out that according to a research, poverty, lack of mutual family communications, hiding from facing social problems and inferior feelings, were main causes of spike in drug addiction.

They said most of youth under 25 years of age were getting addicted to drugs.

They said according to data one of main causes of growing incidents of crime in the society was sharp increase in drug addiction. They said drug addicts indulged in crimes to meet their expenses.

They said drug addicts were involved in 76 per cent of theft cases and 80 per cent of murders.

They said one could keep himself safe from drugs by following teachings of Islam and avoiding bad habits.

SHOT DEAD: Two people were killed in separate incidents of firing, the police said.

They said brothers Aziz and Zubair of Ababakri area of Tarnab shot dead Amir Ali of Cheena village.

The Tarnab police registered case on the complaint of a brother of the deceased and started investigation.

A woman was killed when her two sons traded fire after a scuffle over a petty dispute in Jamalabad locality of Harichand.

Sajjad Hussain, son of the deceased woman, reported to the Mandani police that his two brothers, Subhanullah and Ehtisham started firing at each other after exchanging hot words, as a result a bullet struck their mother. She died on the spot.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2024