Train March: People will hold the corrupt accountable, says Siraj

JI chief says Panama Papers exposed several politicians

LAHORE: Embarking on the second leg of Jamaat-i-Islami’s (JI) train march against corruption, party chief Sirajul Haq said on Thursday the nation would not forgive those who had plundered billions of rupees of the public money and transferred it to Swiss banks and businesses in Panama, London and Dubai.

Enthusiastic JI workers bade farewell to the rally at the City railway station. They shouted slogans against the elite accusing them of looting the national wealth. Some of them waived party flags.

Haq injured his leg while boarding the running train at Kot Radha Kishan station. He said the JI’s Corruption-free Pakistan campaign and Train March aimed at building a Pakistan that had education, health, jobs and justice to all.

He said the VIPs were holding the national institutions hostage. “Pakistan of the rich is entirely different from the one of the poor,” the JI chief said. “The rich and their children enjoy all luxuries but the poor and their children are deprived of even the basic amenities.”

Haq said the corrupt elite had usurped rights of industrial workers, farmers and minority communities. “The poor, including factory workers and farmers, are not corrupt. Those in authority are corrupt,” he said. He said the Panama Papers scandal had exposed many politicians. He said the JI demanded that the joint parliamentary committee, tasked with finalising terms of reference for probing the scandal, complete the job early. A delay in this regard would not be acceptable, he said.

Haq said that Pakistan was ruled by “feudal lords, waderas, capitalists, the corrupt, speculators, industrialists and US agents”. “I will chase these people to London.”

The JI chief said the price hike had hit the poor hard. “The electricity tariff has been raised several times in recent years,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th, 2016.