KARACHI: The Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) staged another big demonstration in protest over inflated electricity bills in North Nazimabad on Sunday.

Speaking on the occasion, city chief of the JI Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said that the government would have to realise the gravity of the situation as it would be leading masses to unimaginable anarchy and lawlessness.

A large number of area residents, including women and children, attended the protest.

Carrying placards and banners, protesters chanted slogans against the K-Electric and the previous and incumbent regimes.

Hafiz Naeem said all the luxuries and subsidiaries for the elite class, whereas inflation, petrol bombshells and taxes for common people; it was a flawed policy and it wouldn’t work.

He said that the caretaker prime minister needed to pack up if he could increase the prices of electricity and fuel instead of reducing them.

The JI leader said “35 million Karachiites” had been recording their peaceful protest for several days and the rulers were playing the role of just silent spectators, instead of taking concrete actions.

He demanded that the government bring the feudal lords, generals and other influential people into the tax net.

“Just four per cent feudal lords have clutched 40 per cent of the agricultural land in the country, whereas the rulers have declared them tax free,” he said, adding: “The tax submission by the agricultural land to the national exchequer was Rs4 billion as compared to Rs300 billion by the salaried class.”

“This kind of injustice will push the country to a horrible scenario,” he continued.

He said apart from giving a strike call, the JI would also call for a protest sit-in against inflated electricity bills.

He warned the caretaker federal government against increasing the fuel prices.

In a thinly veiled reference to a video statement of the KE chief executive, he said the people of Karachi did not want to “engage” with ordinary employees of the power utility.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2023