KARACHI: The Jamaat-i-Islami said on Sunday that its election alliance with the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf for the Dec 5 local government election was against the extortionists and targeted killers.

Speaking at a joint JI-PTI election rally in west district, Karachi JI chief Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rahman said that the alliance between the two parties would bring back the peace in the metropolis and restore its identity as the city of lights.

The rally, which was taken out from Metroville and passed through Baldia Town and Saeedabad areas in the west district, was led by the JI’s city chief.

“Our coalition is aimed at elimination of the differences among people of different ethnic backgrounds, including Mohajir, Pakhtun. We want to elect a mayor of Karachi for Karachi and not for London,” he said.

He said that people of the city must hold accountable those who flourished their politics on the divide-and-rule basis.

Hafiz Naeem said that the JI and PTI joined hands not against any particular political force but against “the culture of extortion, terrorism and those elements who ruined the metropolis and introduced the culture of bodies in gunnysacks and turned the city of Karachi into a city of problems”.

He said that the city deserved an honest leadership and the JI and PTI were jointly struggling for the progress and development of the city.

He recalled that during the tenure of Karachi nazim, JI’s Naimatullah Khan got approved 100 million gallon daily water for the metropolis.

However, the subsequent coalition governments had failed to add even one gallon of water and had deprived the residents from necessities like water and power.

The JI leader said that the time of ‘terror politics’ had been over now as ‘politics of terrorism and targeted killing and extortion’ would not work.

He said that the city needed an honest leadership to put the commercial capital of the country on road to progress and prosperity again. “We all have to work jointly to put the city on road to peace and progress and on Dec 5 we have to get rid of the city from extortion and target killing culture through our unity.”

Another JI leader in the West district, Abdul Razzaq Khan, said that today’s rally proved that Karachi would be free from all sorts of mafias who made Karachi hostage for the last 12 years on Dec 5.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2015