JI set to hold march for Karachi residents’ rights today

The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) is set to hold a march on Shahrah-e-Quaideen today (Sunday) in which the party leaders will announce the party’s future line of action for the rights of the residents of Karachi.

The JI had intensified political activities during the past several days to make the march successful and show the party’s strength in the city. The JI’s central chief, Senator Sirajul Haq, will be the main speaker at the march.

With the local government elections in the offing, political parties have been trying to rally public support by highlighting the civic problems of the city. On Thursday, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan organised a rally for Karachi rights. It started in Karimabad and ended at the Mazar-e-Quaid.

According to JI Karachi Information Secretary Zahid Askari, all arrangements have been finalised in connection with the march and a stage with containers near Allah Wala Chowrangi has been set up.

“Rallies for the march led by all JI district heads will reach the public meeting site while a separate seating arrangement for women has also been set up,” he said. During the past week, JI leaders and members in the city’s various neighbourhoods have been holding meetings with residents and distributing pamphlets, asking them to attend their public meetings in maximum numbers for the rights of Karachi.

“Protest demonstrations on three consecutive Fridays were also held in parts of Karachi by district heads and workers where residents were invited to join hands with the party to pressurise the federal and provincial government into giving due rights to Karachi,” Askari said.

On Saturday, JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman addressed the people gathered at a JI protest camp set up near K-Electric’s (KE) central office in the Gizri area where he said the power utility had made the lives of Karachi residents miserable by resorting to hours-long load-shedding.

He reiterated the JI’s demand for cancelling the working licence of KE and rebuked the power utility for carrying out load-shedding on the pretext of lack of supply of natural gas.

“KE claims power bills by generating power using furnace oil whereas its power plants are run on natural gas,” he said. “All parties in the government are supportive of KE in its wrongdoings.”

He said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) had deprived the youth of employment by giving extension to the quota system while the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the ruling party in Sindh, had also issued bogus domiciles to keep the Karachi youths from getting government jobs.

“People of Karachi have become tired of the linguistic politics of the PPP and MQM and they will never accept this anymore,” he said.

JI’s Sindh Assembly member Syed Abdul Rasheed said that it looked that the government was working under KE. He added that the infrastructure of Karachi had been ruined due to the past and present rulers of Sindh.