GUJRAT: Jamaat-i-Islami Emir Sirajul Haq said on Sunday his party’s ‘players’ will not participate in the ‘match’ between the government and the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).

He further said his party will organise its own ‘one-day match’ in Lahore on Oct 30, adding the rulers wanted to settle national issues on streets instead of parliament and courts. He also said the prime minister had presented himself for accountability in his televised address to the nation, but did nothing so far in the six months since then.

Haq said this while responding to questions by the media at the wedding of JI Gujrat Emir Dr Tariq Saleem’s son, Asadullah Tariq here on Sunday.

Not to participate in PTI’s ‘match’ with government

The JI chief said his party had planned two big public rallies for Oct 23 in Peshawar and Oct 30 in Lahore in connection with their campaign against corruption, status quo and “tyranny” in the country.

Senior PPP stalwart and former adviser to the prime minister Nawabzada Ghazanfar Ali Gul also held a brief chat with the JI chief at the wedding, which was also attended by PML-N MNA Abid Raza Kotla, MPAs Mian Tariq Mehmood and Imran Zafar, PML-Q leader and former education minister Mian Imran Masood, PTI leader Saleem Sarwar Jaura among others.

LAHORE: The JI says the prevailing political crisis may be averted if the government ends the Panama Papers impasse.

“If the prime minister removed the hurdles to the establishment of a judicial commission for accountability in the Panama leaks, the prevailing crisis will come to an end,” JI General Secretary Liaquat Baloch said in a reference to the Difa-i-Pakistan’s rally in Islamabad on Oct 28 and PTI’s call for lockdown of the federal capital on Oct 30 to seek accountability of the corrupt.

Published in Dawn October 17th, 2016