HARIPUR: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Sirajul Haq has said Pakistan cannot afford to deviate from its policy on Israel that its founder Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had devised during his role as leader of the All India Muslim League and later at the independence of Pakistan.

“How can we change the policy of the founding father of Pakistan towards Israel and follow others,” he said while talking to Dawn after addressing members of the district bar association here on Friday.

Asked if, in the prevailing circumstances, Pakistan should also revisit its foreign policy regarding Israel when some Muslim countries had already recognised the Jewish state and some lobbyists were also tacitly busy urging Pakistan to join others in that regard, Mr Haq replied that Pakistan was the leading Muslim nation in the world and it would not follow others keeping in view the stance that Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had taken for the rights of Arab Muslims, especially Palestinians, before and after the partition of the subcontinent.

To a question about the JI’s governance model, especially the economic policy, the JI chief said his party had a complete programme that could help the country steer out of the prevailing economic and political crises.

Claims Jamaat has a plan to address economic crisis

Earlier, while addressing the lawyers, Mr Haq said Americans and their European allies had taken complete control of the economy, health and politics of the Muslim countries, including Pakistan, through international organisations like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organisation and World Health Organisation, and both ruling and the opposition parties were dancing to their tunes.

He termed the PTI, PML-N and PPP the guardians of status quo and the interests of world powers, and added that they all were grown up in the nurseries of the establishment and caused irreparable loss to the country and disrespected the Constitution of Pakistan.

He said that the constitutions of 1956, 1962 and 1973 had clearly asked the government to ensure Riba-free economy and the Shariat Court had decided the case thrice against Riba, but the government had failed to implement the verdict.

He claimed that after the failure of three mainstream political parties in bringing relief to the general public, the people of Pakistan were left with the only choice of JI, which he said, had the capacity to introduce Islamic system, take the country out of economic crisis and bring real prosperity to the people.

Later, he inaugurated an Aghosh centre in Khalabat Township.

TWO DIE ON ROAD: Two persons were killed and four others injured in a road accident near Kotnajibullah Interchange of the Hazara Motorway on Friday evening.

According to the motorway police, six friends from Dera Ghazi Khan district of Punjab were on their way back after visiting Naran when their car skidded off the road while overtaking another car and fell into maize fields, killing two friends, namely Sultan and Ayaz, on the spot.

The injured were identified as Abid, Ghulam Asghar, Yaseen and Waheed. The bodies and the injured were shifted to the Haripur Trauma Centre, the police said.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2022