GUJRAT: The Jamaat-i-Islami Emir Sirajul Haq has kicked off the party’s fund-raising campaign “Prosperous Pakistan Fund” from the Gujrat district.

JI’s district emir Dr Tariq Saleem presented a cheque for Rs6 million to the party chief at a ceremony held here on Sunday.

According to the senior party leadership, the JI has planned a countrywide drive for collecting funds to be spent on the party’s mass contact campaign.

The party chief will visit the major economic hubs of the country such as Karachi, Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Sialkot, Peshawar and other cities to generate funds from the local party cadre and sympathizers.

Considering Gujrat a major source of funds in the central Punjab region, the JI chief attended two fund raising functions -- the first in Kharian Cantonment and the other in Gujrat -- where a number of local philanthropists and JI associates were also present.

Speaking to participants, the JI emir says a clean and green Pakistan has been the vision of his party where basic human rights of justice, uniform system of education, health and employment opportunities will be provided to every citizen regardless of his religious beliefs and ethnicity.

He said that Pakistan could not achieve the basic goals set by Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah who, according to him, wanted to make the country a true Islamic state.

He said the justice system of Pakistan had badly been flopped since seeking justice from courts was too costly and no chief justice had ever sought guidance from the Holy Quran while giving verdicts.

“Until the judiciary discharges its duty as per the teachings of the Holy Quran, neither the individuals nor the entire society can get justice,” he said.

Mr Haq vowed to introduce a uniform education system from nursery to metric for all instead of the communal education system imposed by British Lord Macaulay.

He said his party would ensure free treatment of five diseases such as hepatitis, cancer, kidney, heart and thalassemia for every citizen while the poor people would be given subsidy on flour, sugar, tea, ghee and pulses.

To ensure the provision of the Islamic right of a woman in the family’s property share, he suggested that it must be made a prerequisite for becoming an elected representative to first produce such a certificate whether he/she had provided his sister and daughter the same right from the family’s assets.

He said the JI was a party of masses unlike other mainstream parties which were owned by one man or a family as PPP belonged to Zardari, PML-N to Nawaz Sharif, PTI to Imran Khan and JUI to Fazlur Rehman whereas JI’s leadership changed regularly after polls as Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Syed Munawar Hassan were no more party chiefs in their lives.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2015

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