JI chief asks govt, LEAs to explain failure to arrest attackers of pro-Kashmir rally

The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) emir, Sirajul Haq, on Friday asked the federal and provincial governments and law enforcement agencies to explain why they could not arrest the criminals involved in the attack on the party’s Kashmir rally in Karachi despite the passage of two days.

On Wednesday, the JI had organised a rally in Karachi to express solidarity with the people of Indian-held Kashmir to mark one year since India revoked the special status of the occupied valley. The JI rally was attacked with a grenade after which nearly 37 people were injured, of whom one succumbed to his injuries.

“The rally was not attacked by an individual. An entire conspiracy is behind the attack which benefitted India and harmed Pakistan,” said Haq, who was addressing a press conference at Idara Noor-e-Haq, the JI’s Karachi secretariat.

JI Central Deputy Emir Mian Muhammad Aslam, Karachi Emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, and other city leaders Dr Osama Razi, Muslim Pervez, Raja Arif Sultan, Abdul Wahab and Zahid Askari accompanied their party chief at the news conference.

Haq, who is also a senator, said that there was no doubt that India was behind the attack on the JI rally that was organised to show support for the ongoing independent movement in Kashmir.

“Youth of Karachi have played a key role in the Kashmir independence struggle by rendering sacrifices,” he said. “Renaming the Kashmir Highway in Islamabad as the Srinagar highway did not offer a solution to the issue,” the JI chief said, adding that a city in Pakistan should rather be renamed Srinagar.

Siraj criticised the federal government for its performance regarding the Kashmir issue, saying that the federal government’s performance had been disappointing and the entire nation and Kashmiris were unhappy about it. “We will continue to support the struggle for the independence of Kashmir.”

He added that the Pakistani rulers had failed to divert the world’s attention towards the Kashmir issue. “Because of the Pakistani government’s failed policies, several Islamic countries have awarded Modi with honours.” He was of the view that the government needed to start practical efforts for the Kashmir cause and start a national dialogue to formulate a joint policy on Kashmir.

Haq suggested that the government should take measures to call a meeting of the Organi­sation of Islamic Confer­ence on the one-point agenda of Kashmir is­sue. “In that meeting, it should be decided that all the Muslim countries would discontinue their trade with India until the Modi government took back its August 5 move of revoking the special status of Kashmir.”

Rejecting the Mutual Legal Assistance Bill that was passed in a joint sitting of parliament on Thursday, he said that the bill was passed to enslave Pakistan forever by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

He said the Pakistan Peoples Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had played the role of silent facilitator for the government in passing the bill and they had played a similar role in the past as well. Discussing the devastation caused due to the monsoon rains in Karachi, the JI chief remarked that every government had been taking resources from Karachi but was not ready to give anything to the city.

“All the three tiers of government - federal, provincial and city - have been blaming each other for the problems of the metropolis but did not resolve its issues,” he said.