Siraj censures premier for statement on army

Says remarks are “tantamount to dragging the national institution in politics”

QUETTA: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Sirajul Haq has said that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s statement that the army is standing behind him is “tantamount to dragging the national institution in politics”.

Addressing the Jaffarabad District Bar on Saturday, Sirarj said this was not the first time that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had attempted to cause embarrassment to the military.

“The chief executive of a country is instead expected to claim that the masses are standing behind him,” he said.

He regretted that the rulers never let go of any moment to issue irresponsible statements.

He claimed the ruling elite was incompetent and had been unaware of the art to run the government.

At the foreign front, Siraj said the government had failed to fight the case of Kashmir and at home, it inflicted irreparable damage to the economy by handing over the country to the IMF.

He said the irony was that the persons who were being appointed by the government on recommendations of the international lending agency were also quitting the key posts.

“The poor are starving to death due to inflation and thousands have lost their jobs due to the flawed economic policies implemented by the government on the dictation of the IMF,” he said.

Siraj criticised the premier for making rhetoric about mafias on a daily basis and advised him to look around if he was serious in taking action against those who were creating fake shortage of food commodities and earning billions of rupees through it.

“Mafias are sitting in the government and they make open claims about their access to Banigala,” he said.

The JI chief said people wanted to know the names of those who had made their lives miserable and put their livelihoods at stake.

He noted Balochistan was gifted with enormous resources but the rulers did nothing for the residents of the province.

“People in many parts of the province are living without electricity and gas despite the fact that Balochistan is providing energy to the entire country,” he said. Siraj lamented that clean drinking water was not available to the people of Jaffarabad, Naseerabad and Dera Aallahyar.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 17^th, 2020.