Hafiz Naeem announces nationwide strike on Septemb…
Jamaat-e-Islami chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman has announced a nationwide strike on September 3, saying he will visit different cities to persuade traders to join the party’s ongoing protest movement.
Addressing a press conference in Lahore, Hafiz Naeem said the party would hold a major public gathering in Faisalabad on Friday, followed by another gathering in Lahore and then Peshawar. He said he would also meet industrialists and traders in Faisalabad to discuss their concerns and encourage them to participate in the movement.
He announced that sit-ins would also begin in Quetta from the following day.
Hafiz Naeem said the protests and sit-ins would continue until the government accepted the party’s demands. He added that consultations were under way over a possible call for a march towards Islamabad.
The Jamaat chief said the party was not yet formally announcing a wheel-jam strike, but expressed the view that the September 3 strike could eventually turn into a complete shutdown.
He strongly criticised prolonged power outages across the country and questioned who would be held responsible for the situation. He said ending load-shedding was among the key demands of the protest movement.
He also demanded the withdrawal of fixed charges imposed on electricity bills and called for the immediate termination of agreements with independent power producers.
Hafiz Naeem accused the government of burdening citizens with rising fuel and electricity costs. He said gas shortages had also reached alarming levels, despite consumers paying high prices for the commodity.
Criticising the government’s taxation policies, he alleged that authorities were focused on collecting taxes while businesses were being pushed towards closure. He accused government officials of enjoying expensive facilities at the expense of ordinary citizens.
The Jamaat chief warned that if the levy and so-called “bhatta tax” were not withdrawn, no one would be able to stop a mass public movement.
He further alleged that the government had been formed through what he described as a “Form 47” mandate and claimed that the party’s protests had exposed irregularities involving diesel pricing.
According to Hafiz Naeem, additional refinery charges were being imposed on locally produced diesel, further increasing the burden on consumers and businesses.
He also raised questions over the deaths of 14 children in the fire at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), demanding accountability over the incident and criticising the hospital’s administration.
The Jamaat chief also accused the country’s three major political parties of engaging in what he described as a political “noora kushti”, alleging that they were creating the appearance of confrontation while avoiding substantive action.
Hafiz Naeem said Jamaat-e-Islami would continue its campaign until its demands were addressed and urged traders, industrialists and citizens to join the protest movement.
