KARACHI: Imran calls for joint anti-govt drive ‘to save country’
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, June 17: Time has come for all people-friendly political parties to join hands together and launch a vigorous movement against the military rulers to save the country.
This was stated by Imran Khan, chief of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf, while addressing a press conference after his arrival in the city on Saturday.
He said that a meeting of the heads of all opposition parties was being held on Tuesday in Islamabad to take a decision about forming a joint platform and determine the date for the launching of such a movement.
In reply to a question, he said if any alliance, including the ARD or MMA, disagreed with the proposal, the movement would be launched by his party and the Jamaat-i-Islami jointly taking along smaller parties. He said the movement was likely to be launched in September.
Criticising the increased allocation for defence in the federal budget, he remarked that the army could not save the country, adding that Pakistan can be saved only by declaring ‘education emergency’ in the country and by allocating five per cent of the GDP for education. He termed education policy, tax structure and governance ‘anti-people’ saying these were beneficial to the privileged class only. “The nation may experience a disaster if we did not equip our children with proper knowledge and skills,” he warned.
Deploring the continued military operations in Waziristan and Balochistan, he demanded an inquiry into the whole affair, claiming that the country’s armed forces were being used against countrymen at the behest of the United States, which was paying $70 million per month to the government in this regard. He also asked the government to make public the actual number of casualties suffered by the Pakistan army so far in Waziristan.
Imran Khan criticised the government’s plan to build a GHQ in Islamabad which would spread over 25,000 acres. The land alone was valued at Rs200-400 billion whereas $1.5 billion was the estimated cost of development, the contract of which had been awarded to a Turkish firm, he noted. “The US GHQ (Pantagon), from where Washington rules the world, is spread over just 250 canals,” he pointed out.
He said that in a country where more than 100 million people were below the age of 10 years, it was more important to pay attention on their future than on a new GHQ.The PTI chief said that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s claim about poverty having been alleviated by seven per cent and the per capita income having doubled in four years was the ‘biggest lie’, adding that the rulers could have a realisation of poverty, resulting from soaring prices, and other miseries of common man only when they came out of their ivory towers and corridors of power.
He recalled that the prime minister himself had, at the time of the presentation of budget-2001, had termed 68 per cent indirect taxes ‘a great injustice’ with people, but today the indirect taxes had been increased up to 75 per cent.
Mr Khan was also critical of the law and order situation in the country, saying that in today’s Pakistan, there existed no law. Most people could not get their genuine problems resolved and had lost all hopes for justice because no institution had been left intact.
Pointing out that Pakistan had been ranked No.5 by the Transparency International in its list of corrupt governments, Imran Khan said that this belied the government’s claim that corruption at higher level had been eliminated.
