LAHORE: Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Emir Sirajul Haq has criticised the government for cancelling the Iqbal Day holiday and “drifting away from Iqbal’s ideology”.

Talking to the media after laying a floral wreath at Iqbal’s mausoleum here on Monday, he said the government was shy of showing its allegiance to Allama Iqbal, but warned that by drifting away from the poet’s philosophy, the country could neither achieve development nor maintain its identity as a respectable, dignified state.

Taking strong exception to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s statement regarding a liberal Pakistan, Haq said hundreds of thousands of Muslims of the subcontinent had not sacrificed their lives for creation of a “westernised, liberal state”.

“The Muslims undertook history’s biggest migration to be able to lead their lives in accordance with a system based on Shariah,” he added.

Urging the prime minster to withdraw the statement, he said by cancelling the Iqbal Day holiday the government had given a message that it had no concern with Iqbal’s ideology.

The JI chief remarked that the government neither had any vision nor any goal before it.

Meanwhile, a delegation of Pakistan Awami Tehreek and Minajul Quran also laid a wreath at the mausoleum of Allama Iqbal and prayed on behalf of party Chairman Dr Tahirul Qadri.

Talking to the media, the delegation also chided the government for not announcing a holiday on the birth anniversary of the poet. The delegation also visited the mausoleum of Rajneet Singh and expressed solidarity with Sikh leaders there.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2015