LOWER DIR: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Sirajul Haq has declared that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s three years in government are a total failure on all fronts.

Addressing party workers at Ahyaul Uloom Balambat here on Sunday night, he said by massively increasing the rates of medicines, electricity, oil and gas, the government had made it difficult for people to make both ends meet.

Mr Haq said the JI was ready to help the Taliban morally and politically, adding an international lobby was hatching conspiracies to divide the Muslims on the basis of nationality and sect. “Workers should beware of all these conspiracies,” he said.

Mr Haq declared that the draft bill on forced conversion was meant to stop youths from embracing Islam out of their own free will.

He insisted that rulers wanted to make Pakistan a secular state and a colony of the West under a conspiracy, which the JI would not allow.

About the government’s performance, he said the PTI economists had admitted that people should not expect any good in the next two years. Due to the failed foreign policy of the government, thousands of overseas Pakistanis in Malakand division had long been waiting for resumption of flights to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States.

The JI chief said if steps were not taken to restore flights to Saudi Arabia in time visas of a majority of people would expire, thus rendering them jobless. The former senator was of the view that only implementation of a true Islamic system could drive the country out of multiple crises.

JI district emir Izazul Mulk Afkari and other local leaders also spoke on the occasion.

COMPENSATION SOUGHT: The residents of Safroona and Gulabad areas on Monday demanded of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to compensate the people affected by the construction of Chakdara bypass road.

The demand was made during a meeting of the landowners.

On the occasion, PML-N provincial vice-president Barrister Attaullah Khan and others said the Timergara-Peshawar Road would be blocked if the government failed to compensate the landowners within a week.

Published in Dawn, September 21st, 2021