LAHORE : Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan Emir Sirajul Haq has announced countrywide protest demonstration against the inflated electricity bills.
Addressing a press conference along with JI Secretary General Ameerul Azim and JI Information Secretary Qaisar Sharif at Mansoorah on Friday, Sirajul Haq said the government had crossed all limits of injustice and cruelty.
A household, Sirajul Haq said, received Rs12, 000 monthly bill against power consumption of worth Rs4, 000. The government, he said, added over 60 percent amount in the bills in form of various taxes. “We demand the government withdraw all the taxes from electricity bills before August 12.”
The protests demonstration, he said, will be held in all over the country on next Friday, appealing the masses to stand for their rights and ensure their full participation in the agitations. He said the JI would expand the protest movement if the people were not provided relief. He said the people must know their miseries would not come to an end without struggle. People, he said, should no longer be willing to be made scapegoat for the luxuries of the ruling elite. The feudal lords, waderas and mafias were looting the country’s resources with both hands, without caring the miseries of the people, Sirajul Haq said.
In a country where 80 percent population lacked access to even clean drinking water and where millions of children were out of school due to poverty, there was no limit in protocol culture and extravagances by ministers and bureaucrats on state resources. Why the public was forced to pay the cost of the free electricity and fuel facilities available to ruling class, he questioned.
Sirajul Haq said the PTI, the PDM and the PPP destroyed the country and damaged every institution. The ruling parties, he said, stood badly exposed now, having nothing on their credit except loot and plunder. He said the JI would continue struggle for the rights of the people.
To a question, he said political parties should accept the verdicts of the courts standing above of personal liking and disliking. He said the three main political parties always sought backing of the establishment to come into power.