Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) chief Munawar Hasan, former JI chief Qazi Husain Ahmed and Secretary General Liaquat Baloch on Monday condemned the shooting at the Saudi consulate car in Karachi and expressed grief over the death of a consulate official in the incident.
They said the incident was a conspiracy to damage Pakistan’s image in the Arab world in the backdrop of the Abbotabad incident. They said there had been an attack at the Saudi consulate in the past as well and the Pakistani government should have beefed up the security there and demanded provision of fool proof security to the Saudi citizens in Pakistan.
Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith (MJAH) Ameer and Senator Sajid Mir and Secretary General Hafiz Abdul Karim also condemned the killing of Saudi diplomat in Karachi. MJAH leaders said this attack was a failure of the Sindh government to give proper protection to Saudi diplomats even after an earlier attack on the consulate. MJAH announced launching a campaign in favour of Saudi Arabia.
JI proposes budget reforms: JI Deputy Secretary General Farid Ahmed Piracha on Monday urged the federal as well as the provincial governments to adopt concrete measures in the coming budget for providing relief to the people and also cut down the expenditure at governmental level.
Piracha said the burden of indirect taxes should be reduced and the salaried class must be provided reasonable pay/pension raise in view of inflation. He proposed a subsidy on agricultural inputs and electricity supply to the growers instead of importing potatoes, tomatoes and “opinions” from India. He said imports from India had been around $ 1.5 billion in the last year which caused losses of around $ 250 million. He said this sum should be provided to the farmer as a subsidy to increase farm production.
Typically, the Afghan Taliban have been seen as an entity Pakistan can work with and should safeguard until the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014. The TTP, which has targeted the security apparatus, citizens and shrines of Pakistan, is generally seen as the enemy. With the TTP proclaiming al Qaeda as its ally and carrying out revenge attacks against Pakistan and Saudi Arabia while promising to hit the US, it is time our godfathers and nurturers of terrorists change course and target them all equally. The Saudi consulate was attacked mere days before and it is appalling that security measures by both the Saudis and the Pakistani law enforcement agencies were so poor that an incident like this was allowed to happen in broad daylight. We are stuck in a terror war, more so after bin Laden’s demise. It is time to move our threat levels up a few notches to fully appreciate the dilemma we are in. Slamming shut the barn door after the horse has bolted is no good. The Taliban have now chosen their original mentor to torment. Pakistan has been caught in the terror blitz for years now but after bin Laden’s death, the Saudis too are being targeted. The Kingdom needs to understand that they have created a monster and that it will take keen and sincere intelligence sharing between us, the Kingdom and the US to tackle this rogue militia. The militants respect no one; it is time we fought back hard and without spurious or imaginary distinctions between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban.
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