KARACHI: The All Parties Conference (APC) of political and religious parties, trad unions and PIA employees’ action committee termed the proposed privatization of Pakistan International Airline (PIA), Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) and other institutions against the interest of Pakistan and demanded of the government to bring reforms in the organizations, instead of pursuing the agenda of their privatization on the behest of international monitory institutions.
The APC was held on Sunday at the Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi headquarters Idara Noor-e-Haq.
In his presidential address, the JI Karachi chief Engr. Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman has said that the issue of PIA’s privatization is concern of the entire nation. He said that the agenda of privatization is against the interest of Pakistan as the policy is being resulted in flight of capital from the hands of people to the international capitalist institutions.
He said that so far some half a million people have become jobless due to this privatization policy, being pursued with full force by the current ruling regime.
The JI leader stressed the need of eliminating corruption from the national institutions for their survival.
Criticizing the present government, he said that the rulers should have condoled the heirs of those laid down their lives in protest against the anti-state policy of privatizations. He said that if the rulers can start dialogue with the terrorist ruling regime of Narendra Modi led government than why cant they take PIA employees on board before precious loss of PIA employees’ lives.
He said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif need to soften his tone and bring reforms in PIA, instead of bashing his own citizens.
He further said that the JI is ready to play its due role in this regard.
Capt. Sohail Balouch of PIA said that the prime minister is being misguided. He said that the government should look into the matter carefully and realize the problem, instead of making it and issue of personal ego and grudge.
He said that four of the PIA employees have been forcefully missed. He demanded of the government to release them immediately and vowed not to back down before the cruelty and usage of excessive force by the government. He was of the view that people and employees of the PIA are the stake holders of PIA, who are being beaten up by the government.
Najmi Aalam of Pakistan People Party (PPP) said that his party always opposes the privatization. He said that the behavior of the government towards the protest of the employees is quite inappropriate. He stressed the need of dialogue on the issue and warned that usage of force would further worsen the situation.
Khawja Tariq Nazir of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz demanded of the government ensure a transparent probe into the incident of brutal murder of PIA employees in broad day light. Qari Usman of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam demanded of the government to take some serious steps to resolve the issue and asked the PML-N government to take some lessons from the mistakes they made in past. Siddique Rathor of Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan said that the auction of national institutions in the name of privatization is unacceptable.
Qazi Ahmed Noorani, Latif Mughal, Habib Junadi, Zafar Khan, Liaquat Sahi, Shafiq Ghauri, Bisharat Mirza , Nadeem, Naeem Qureshi,Al-Haj Rafi and others also expressed their views on the occasion.
