QUETTA: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Senator Sirajul Haq has called upon the rulers to step down as they have failed to fulfil their constitutional responsibility of protecting the life and property of citizens.

Talking to journalists at the Quetta press club after visiting the Quetta Civil Hospital to inquire after the health of police cadets injured in the Oct 25 militant attack, he said it had been an agenda of the enemy to destabilise Balochistan through such acts.

However, he added, Balochistan must not be allowed to become a place like Syria and Iraq and the government should sit down with the leadership of Balochistan and chalk out a strategy to eradicate terrorism and restore peace.

He alleged that the rulers had left the masses at the mercy of terrorists and they themselves were living in palaces protected by barbed wires and scores of police posts.

“Rulers should show moral courage and resign for their failure to protect the life and property of the people who voted them to power,” said Mr Haq.

Militants attacked Quetta’s Civil Hospital in August and now the Police Training College, he said, adding that had the culprits behind the hospital assault been arrested, the attack on the police college would not have taken place.

He appreciated the prompt visit by the prime minister and the army chief to Quetta after the Oct 25 attack, but said they should have stayed here to review the implementation of the National Action Plan against terrorism.

The JI chief condemned the transportation of bodies of the police cadets by public vehicles to far-off areas and said this was an insult to those who had sacrificed their lives to protect their motherland. He said the federal and provincial governments should be asked to answer for this injustice.

He regretted that the rulers moved around in helicopters all the times, but bodies of the fallen cadets were transported to their native towns in an improper way.

The JI chief demanded immediate shifting of the seriously injured cadets to Karachi hospitals so that their lives could be saved. He said it was the responsibility of the government to look after the families of the deceased cadets.

He said the government had to explain why the cadets were called back after they had completed their training.

He said the government should have given special attention to this point after the arrest of RAW agent Kulbhushan Jadhav and the Indian prime minister’s statement about Balochistan.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2016