Siraj demands restoration of student unions

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has demanded the government restore student unions immediately, saying that depriving any section of society including students of their democratic and constitutional rights was great injustice.

Sirajul Haq said student unions were nurseries of politics and governance and played a key role in the creation of Pakistan and resolving political crises in country’s history, he said while talking to a delegation of Islami Jamiat e Talaba at Mansoorah on Monday. The delegation was led by IJT chief from KP. Shakil Ahmed, IJT chief for northern Punjab Shahzeb Ahmed and IJT chief from Sindh, Asad Ali Qureshi.

Siraj said the objectives for which the unions were banned during the Gen Zia era had not been realized during the last 35 years nor those could be achieved in future. He said students, under the leadership of the Quaid-e-Azam, had been on the forefront of the Pakistan movement. He said several political leaders in present-day politics had been produced by student unions. "The restoration of student bodies will provide the nation with an energetic and talented leadership which would lead the country and the nation to progress and prosperity," he added.

He said student bodies should be restored to give millions of students at college and university level the right to choose their representatives. He said the PTI which claimed to be the upholders of the rights of the youth should have restored the unions by now. Meanwhile, in a statement, JI naib ameer Dr Farid Ahmed Piracha welcomed warm sentiments expressed by visiting Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, for Pakistan and the Pakistani nation. He said the relations between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were not only strong but also respectable and had an element of sanctity because of the Haramain e Sharifain.

He appreciated Prime Minister Imran Khan’s request to the Crown Prince to solve the problems of Pakistani pilgrims and those in Saudi prisons.