KARACHI: Jamaat-i-Islami emir Sirajul Haq views upcoming local government elections as an opportunity for people of Karachi to change the fate of their city.

Speaking at a workers’ convention here on Sunday evening, the JI chief urged the people of Karachi to exercise their right of franchise against “killers, extortionists and those who are usurping the rights of the city”.

“I am in Karachi to appreciate the brave people who have decided to fight against fascist elements. We will prove the JI never lets down those who put their trust in it,” he said.

He lamented that there was an overall sense of hopelessness and depression across the city and promised to bring a positive change in the metropolis and turn Karachi into a developed international city.

Without naming JI’s nemesis, Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the JI chief said that Karachi had been in the “clutches of terrorists and killers” for several decades.

He told Karachiites that the decisions for their city would be taken here and not in London — a thinly veiled reference to MQM chief Altaf Hussain running his party from abroad since long — if they voted for an honest leadership.

“If people are ready for a change then no one can stop a genuine change coming,” he said, adding that no international power could do anything if the people of Karachi decided to change their fate.

He was of the view that the Dec 3 LG elections in Karachi were an opportunity for the people to change their destiny.

He pointed out worsening situation in healthcare and civic sectors in the metropolis and said it the JI was voted to power it would change the class-based educational system in the country.

Speaking on the occasion, JI city chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said that the LG polls were an opportunity to bring back the culture of peace and progress in the city.

Addressing all ethnic groups living in Karachi, particularly the Urdu-speaking community, he said the sense of insecurity among them was a result of a divide-and-rule conspiracy.

He directed the JI activists to work and cooperate with the workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, as the JI had set aside its ideological and other differences with other parties for the sake of Karachi.

The JI leader said that besides municipal institutions, the K-Electric would also be held accountable for what he called their dishonesty and crimes.

Dr Merajul Huda Siddiqui, the provincial chief of the JI, said on the occasion that JI candidates and their families were being threatened. However, he hoped that the JI would defeat “powerful lords” in the interior of Sindh and “fascist elements” in Karachi in the upcoming LG elections.

The workers’ convention was informed that the JI was contesting LG elections on 188 union committees in Karachi.

The convention, under the slogan ‘Let’s change our Karachi’, was dedicated to late JI leader Nasrullah Shaji.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2015

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