By Staff Reporter
LAHORE: Jamaat-i-Islami has announced a fresh round of sit-in protests outside government buildings in four major cities, as the Islamist party escalates its campaign against fuel levies and warns the demonstrations could tip into a broader movement against the government.
Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, the party’s emir, told a press conference on Saturday that supporters would gather outside the Governor Houses in Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar, as well as the Chief Minister House in Lahore, on Sunday afternoon. The protests are set to begin at 4pm, with demonstrators marching in from surrounding areas to reach each site.
Speaking at the party’s headquarters in Mansoora, flanked by senior office-bearers from its central and provincial leadership, Rehman framed the protests as a peaceful attempt to represent ordinary Pakistanis squeezed by rising costs.
“We want to convey the voice of suppressed labourers, students and other sections of society to the government peacefully,” he said.
But he coupled that message with a pointed warning: any government attempt to disrupt or suppress the sit-ins, he said, risked transforming a campaign over petrol prices into a broader push to remove the government from power.
Rehman pointed to a wave of sit-ins the party staged at 510 locations across the country the previous week as evidence of its restraint, noting that the protests passed off without incident. “Not a single flowerpot was broken,” he said. “We will come peacefully and return after securing our right.”
He was equally clear that the party’s patience had limits on timing. “We are giving the time for the start of the sit-ins but not for their ending,” he said, suggesting demonstrations would continue until the party’s demands were met.
Those demands centre on the levy imposed on petroleum products, which Jamaat-i-Islami wants scrapped entirely, alongside a cap on petrol prices at Rs225. The party is also calling for the price of roti to be fixed at Rs10, and for reductions in the cost of flour, electricity and gas.
Rehman used the press conference to take direct aim at the perks enjoyed by Pakistan’s political and bureaucratic elite, demanding that vehicles used by federal and provincial bureaucrats, judges, ministers and advisers be restricted to engines no larger than 1,300cc. He also called for an end to free electricity, gas, fuel and what he described as other “extravagant privileges” extended to officials, arguing that taxes collected from the public should be channelled back into public services rather than propping up the lifestyles of the ruling class.
“Rs130 is being collected per litre of petrol as extortion in the name of the levy,” he alleged.
The JI chief went on to accuse the federal government of allowing its spending to spiral, claiming that expenditure originally estimated at Rs800 billion had climbed to Rs1 trillion. He questioned the government’s priorities more broadly, alleging that public transport remained scarce and unreliable even as the Punjab chief minister continued to travel by an aircraft he valued at Rs11 billion.
“If the masses will not come out now, then at what point will they leave their homes?” he asked.
Rehman insisted the party had no personal or political agenda beyond representing public grievances, and cautioned that Jamaat-i-Islami had a “second plan” ready should the government try to shut down Sunday’s protests — one that would see the sit-ins expanded nationwide.
The press conference was attended by a wide bench of party leadership, including deputy chiefs Liaqat Baloch, Mian Muhammad Aslam and Dr Attaur Rehman; acting secretary general Nazeer Ahmed Janjua; deputy secretary Azhar Iqbal Hassan; Lahore emir Ziauddin Ansari; central Punjab secretary Babar Rashid; social media head Salman Sheikh; and JI Youth representatives Ahmad Salman Baloch and Jibran Butt.
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