By Our Correspondent
LAHORE: Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan (JI) Emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman has announced plans to stage peaceful sit-ins at 510 designated locations across the country, issuing a stern warning that any state interference with the demonstrations will transform the protest into an anti-government campaign.
Addressing a large protest gathering organised by the party’s Women’s Wing on Wahdat Road in Lahore, the JI chief declared that key inter-district transit routes nationwide would be blocked starting from 4:00 PM. He assured the public that emergency transit would remain unaffected, confirming that ambulances and emergency vehicles would be permitted unhindered access.
“If obstacles are created or our peaceful protest against the petroleum levy is blocked, this campaign will turn into an anti-government movement,” Rehman warned. He reiterated the party’s central demand that the government immediately fix the price of petrol at Rs225 per litre to provide tangible financial relief to the public.
Several senior leaders also addressed the gathering, including JI Lahore Emir Advocate Ziauddin Ansari, Women’s Wing President Dr Humaira Tariq, Samiha Raheel Qazi, Samina Saeed, and Uzma Imran.
The JI chief criticized the government’s tax structure, characterizing the petroleum levy as “extortion” rather than legitimate taxation. He highlighted that the administration collects Rs125 in taxes on every single litre of petrol purchased by ordinary citizens while simultaneously maintaining lavish official expenditures, including high-end state vehicles and private aircraft. “Enough is enough,” he asserted.
Questioning official pricing policies, Rehman pointed out that while retail fuel rates are rapidly escalated by citing global market volatility during regional conflicts, the government failed to pass on relief when international crude oil dropped to $74 per barrel. He further alleged that Rs8 trillion collected under the head of the petroleum levy had yielded zero reinvestment into modernizing state petroleum infrastructure or local oil refineries.
Economic recovery, according to the JI emir, remains directly contingent on the complete abolition of the petroleum levy. He criticized the ruling coalition for remaining detached from public hardship, observing that inflation has forced households into desperate measures, including women selling family jewelry to manage daily kitchen expenses.
Rehman expanded his criticism to broader administrative failures, condemning the unequal distribution of education, a unresponsive civil service apparatus, and growing curbs on peaceful civic dissent. He claimed the federal government has surrendered its economic policy to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), approving anti-people budgetary measures while ignoring public calls to curtail elite administrative overhead.
Urging widespread participation across Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Rehman specifically called upon the nation’s youth to bring their motorcycles onto the main roads to form peaceful sit-ins and pressure the administration into withdrawing the petroleum levy.
