ISLAMABAD: A leading Pakistani religious political party has warned it would not call off its anti-inflation sit-in in Rawalpindi and Karachi cities until its demands are met, with the protest entering its tenth day today, Sunday.
Thousands of supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party started a protest demonstration in Pakistan’s garrison city of Rawalpindi on July 26, gathering at the historic Liaqat Bagh to demand that the government review stringent economic measures that have financially burdened the people.
Pakistan’s government has formed a committee to hold negotiations with protesters. The JI expanded its protest to Pakistan’s largest city Karachi on Saturday, vowing not to let up until its demands are not met.
“The rulers thought this sit-in would last for a few days, that they [protesters] would tire after a few days,” JI chief Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman told supporters at Liaqat Bagh on Saturday night.
“The rulers should listen to us, we will not return until our demands are not met,” he vowed.
Rehman said that it is the responsibility of the state to provide education, health care and employment to the masses. He lamented that militancy was rising in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces while street crimes were rampant in Karachi.
“But the rulers focus only on their protocol and luxuries,” Rehman said.
Pakistan’s tax-heavy budget, which proved instrumental in helping Islamabad gain a new loan program with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been criticized by opposition parties and traders across the country, who have called on the government to review its economic policies.
Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has frequently said the country had no other option but to seek a bailout program from the IMF to stabilize its fragile economy.
Pakistan has been grappling with a macroeconomic crisis that has caused its currency to weaken against the US dollar, foreign reserves to plummet to historic lows and inflation to surge to double-digit levels in the past two years.
