HYDERABAD, Oct 6: The Jamaat-i-Islami has decided to start a train march from Peshawar to protest against price hike, lawlessness, unemployment, military operation in the northern areas of the country and US aggression against Pakistan.

The chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, will address gatherings at important railway stations, including Nawabshah, Shahdadpur, Tando Adam, Hyderabad, Kotri and Karachi.

This was stated by the chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Sindh, Moulana Asadullah Bhutto, at a news conference held here on Monday at the press club.

Divulging details of the long march, he said, it was being led by JI chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed and it would reach Multan on Oct 14 from where the participants would board Shah Rukan-i-Alam express and enter Sindh the next day.

He said that the objective of the train march was to highlight the problems confronting the country and the masses. Mr Bhutto warned the government against creating any hurdles in the execution of JI’s plans.

The JI leader said that the masses had voted for the present rulers to get rid of Pervez Musharraf and his allies but they had trampled the people’s mandate and had failed to provide the much-expected relief to the masses.

He deplored that instead the situation had aggravated with a surge in the tariffs of electricity and gas and prices of petroleum products and other essential commodities. He said that even the basic necessities of life had become beyond the reach of a common man.

The JI Sindh chief said that the present rulers had failed both on the domestic and external fronts.

He said that the rulers were openly violating their own manifesto. Mr Bhutto said that the core issue was reinstatement of the deposed chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, but the government had failed to keep its promises in this regard.

He alleged that the rulers were giving priority to their own luxuries and were only focused on the distribution of ministries, while all the issues facing the masses had been put on the backburner.

Criticising the statement of President Zardari on Kashmir, he said that even his allies had expressed their disappointment over his stance on the Kashmir issue.

Bhutto severely criticised the statement of President Zardari on the Kashmir issue and said that even his own allies had expressed disappointment over his stance on the Kashmir issue.

Slamming US aggression against Pakistan, he deplored that the rulers were in a fix over the situation and in order to appease the US they had launched a military operation in the northern areas of the country.

He said that the rulers had also failed in fulfilling their promises regarding labour and students’ unions. Instead of providing job security to the workers they were being retrenched, he added.

JI Naib Amirs Dr Mairajul Huda and Dr Mumtaz Memon, Deputy General Secretary Moulana Abdul Waheed Qureshi and other provincial leaders were also present.