By Staff Reporter
LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami party will begin a third phase of protests against the petroleum levy on Friday, a month after it called off a march on Islamabad at the prime minister’s request.
Party chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman announced the new campaign in a video message on Wednesday, saying sit-ins and demonstrations would be held simultaneously in 150 cities. A party press release said they would take place in every district. The protests are due to start on 23 October.
Rehman said the levy had become an unjust burden on ordinary Pakistanis. “The third phase, against the extortion being collected from us on every litre in the form of the petroleum levy, will begin this Friday,” he said. “We believe that this levy must be abolished at all costs.”
The government currently collects Rs114 per litre in taxes and duties on petrol and Rs100 on diesel. On Wednesday it cut the price of petrol by Rs2.71 to Rs379.31 per litre, while high-speed diesel rose by Re0.31 to Rs390.11.
The party said the new phase began on Mr Rehman’s instructions and that its demand remained the complete abolition of the levy. It also said the government had gone silent on a promised meeting between Mr Rehman and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
According to the press release, planning minister Ahsan Iqbal and Rana Sanaullah, the prime minister’s adviser on political affairs, had contacted JI vice-emir Liaqat Baloch to convey Sharif’s request for a meeting. “Both sides had agreed that their respective committees would meet to work out a schedule for the proposed meeting,” it said, adding that the government had made no contact since. There was no immediate government response to the claim.
The party said Rehman had already made clear that the only agenda for any meeting with the prime minister was abolition of the levy. It warned that if the government kept delaying and refused to give the public relief, the matter “will be decided through street protests”.
The dispute has run since August, when JI announced sit-ins in all four provincial capitals on 16 August and called a nationwide strike for 3 September. The government and the party agreed in early September to set up committees to recommend ways of reducing the levy.
A fifth round of talks ended without a deal on 19 September, with the government asking JI to postpone its long march because of security threats. The party launched the march towards Islamabad the next day, warning that the protest could become a campaign to oust the government if the levy was not scrapped.
On 22 September, with the convoy in Multan, Mr Rehman said the march was being postponed at Mr Sharif’s request, pending a meeting with him.
The levy is a major source of non-tax revenue for Pakistan, helping to finance the budget and meet fiscal targets agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It is charged separately from the base price of petroleum products. The finance ministry says it raised Rs1.567tn in the 2025-26 financial year, Rs99bn more than budgeted. During the August protests the government said any cut was unlikely to win IMF approval unless alternative sources of revenue were found.
Fuel prices are politically sensitive in Pakistan, where higher transport and energy costs quickly feed into inflation. The levy has drawn protests in recent months after repeated rises in fuel prices linked to disruption to Gulf supplies. The government has defended it as necessary to stabilise the economy and sustain fiscal reforms.
Rehman told supporters on Wednesday that public pressure would force the government to act. “Through public pressure, we will, God willing, force the government to abolish this levy, because these people are not willing to listen to the public,” he said. “So, everyone should prepare for this.”
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