LAHORE: The Supreme Court should have an early hearing of a petition filed by the Jamaat-i-Islami seeking accountability of 436 people named in the Panama Leaks, other than the Sharif family, says party head Senator Sirajul Haq.

He was talking to a delegation of the Kisan Board Pakistan which called on him at Mansoora on Monday.

Haq stressed that all those named in the Paradise Leaks, besides others who got written off huge bank loans be also tried in order to make the country corruption-free.

The JI chief further said the judiciary would have to undertake a ruthless and indiscriminate accountability of the plunderers in order to preserve its image, dignity and public trust in the institution.

He said the primary issue of the country was the persistent hold of the feudal lords and capitalists on the national politics. The members of the ruling elite had established their own “states within the state”.

The JI chief said both the PPP and the PML-N had been exploiting the masses for the last five decades and during the period the wealth of the rulers continued to increase while the country’s economy had worsened.

He said the government had been neglecting agriculture and had no planning to introduce the country’s products in the world market.

India, he said, was resorting to water aggression against the country and was blocking its share of river water in order to turn Pakistan into a desert. However, the ruling class was blind to India’s designs, he added.

The JI leader said the rulers did not have any plan to check rapid urbanisation. He said if the villages were provided electricity, gas, clean water and roads, the trend of urbanisation could be controlled to a great extent.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2017