LAHORE, Feb 28: Jamaat-i-Islami Amir Qazi Husain Ahmad has underlined the need for making the country a welfare state as promised by the political parties which contested the general election.

He enumerates restoration of the Constitution and judiciary, giving rights to the provinces as enshrined in the basic law, putting an end to foreign intervention in internal affairs, provision of basic necessities to the masses, uniform education system, political and economic stability as the measures required to make the country a welfare state.

Speaking at a meeting of sister organisations of the party at Mansoora on Thursday, he said the APDM, a political alliance of which the Jamaat is also a component, decided in principle not to contest the election in the presence of Musharraf and unless the judges were reinstated.

He said though they were not sitting in assemblies but were working among the masses, paving way for the implementation of their demands.

Qazi Husain said they would give time to the new government to fulfill its electoral promises and solve those basic issues that had been burdening the nation for the last eight years.

He emphasised that the leaders of the parties returned as winners should refrain from “appearing before the American court” and should not sacrifice people’s mandate at Washington’s altar, a reference to meetings of PPP and PML-N leaders with the US ambassador in Islamabad.

He said the masses had rejected Gen Musharraf and his pro-US policies in the Feb 18 vote, now it was the responsibility of the new government to withdraw the army deployed in tribal areas, Balochistan, Swat, and try those who used army against innocent civilians in the country.