JI's 'super train march' chugs towards capital

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman on Sunday launched the party's Karachi-to-Islamabad "super train march" against the petroleum levy, "cruel" agreements with independent power producers (IPPs), warning that the ongoing campaign could intensify into a movement to oust the government if its demands were not accepted.

Thousands of JI workers and participants gathered at Karachi Cantonment Railway Station for the departure, while women office-bearers of the party bade farewell to the marchers with prayers.

Hafiz Naeem said the caravan would reach Islamabad as the voice of the people's demands, while other caravans from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan were also due to set off for the capital.

Addressing the participants, the JI emir said the government should "read the writing on the wall", adding that the issue was not about anyone's ego. He urged the government to take credit for providing relief to the public and abolish the petroleum levy.

He said a path to relief was available to the government and that the additional burden on the people should be reduced by ending the levy. He stressed that the Islamabad march was not being held for any political party or individual but for the rights of the people.

According to Hafiz Naeem, government policies had pushed the public into severe hardship, with the lower and middle-income sections struggling to survive while the government continued to shift the burden of its mismanagement and poor policies onto citizens.

He said the government was using the international market as an excuse to impose an additional burden on consumers through higher petroleum prices.

Instead of restraining the ruling elite, reducing official and elite expenditure, cutting the number of vehicles and reviewing "cruel IPP agreements", he said, the government was imposing further taxes on the people.

The JI emir said the government and its representatives were present in IPPs and that questions had also repeatedly been raised about the presence and interests of government figures in the oil marketing, refinery, flour and sugar sectors.

He said the public was constantly being told to bear every difficulty, but warned that if people continued to sit at home and tolerate everything, further burdens would continue to be imposed on them.

Hafiz Naeem said JI had chosen to take to the streets for the rights of the people. The party had staged a 35-day sit-in in Karachi, while sit-ins were continuing in Sukkur, Larkana and Hyderabad, with marches and protest sit-ins also under way in different parts of Punjab.