Rally in Peshawar: JI vows to choke NATO supplies after Nov 20

Party will organise sit-ins along the route and not allow a single NATO container to pass through K-P.

PESHAWAR:

Jamaat-e-Islami on Friday said it would not allow a single Nato container to pass through Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa after the November 20 deadline set by the provincial government.

The JI – a coalition partner in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led government in K-P – expressed this resolve in a well attended protest in Peshawar.

“The JI warns the federal government that in case it does not stop the Nato supply till November 20, the party will organise sit-ins along the route and not allow a single container to pass through K-P,” said the resolution presented by JI’s provincial spokesman Israrullah Advocate.



“America is not for peace in Pakistan; we consider the drone attack on [Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief] Hakimullah Mehsud an attack on thousands of Pakistanis; snap the servile ties with the US and make an independent foreign policy,” the resolution stated.

It further demanded the government shoot down the US drones crossing into Pakistan’s air space.

JI’s provincial Naib Ameer Mushtaq Ahmad Khan said the drones strike had been termed as criminal by the United Nations. “But even than the Pakistani rulers have given American a licence to kill their own people in broad daylight,” he added.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Senior K-P Minister for Finance Sirajul Haq, who belongs to JI, said that his party has taken the initiative to hold sit-ins on district level, adding that the provincial and federal governments were yet to take such steps. “We want to convey our party’s policy to the public and it is a sensitive issue on which the entire nation will be taken on board,” he said adding that all allied partners also agreed on stopping the Nato supplies.

“Our one-point agenda after the Nov 20 deadline will be to stop the supplies and drone attacks in consultation with all parties,” he added.

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The political parties have distanced themselves from JI’s proposed protest plan, terming it their party policy.

PTI’s Sayed Muhammad Ishtiaq told The Express Tribune that it was JI’s own party protest and they had no joint protest plans in this regard. “We have set the deadline for the federal government and if they don’t take action, we will openly take to street,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 9^th, 2013.