Jamaat-e-Islami Punjab North Secretary General Iqbal Khan has announced that the party\u2019s \u201cLong March\u201d towards Islamabad will begin on September 20, with caravans from across the country travelling through different cities before converging on the federal capital.
\nAt a press conference at the JI office in Rawalpindi, Iqbal Khan said caravans from Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would join the march. At the same time, participants from Karachi would travel to Islamabad via a \u201cTrain March.\u201d He said government restrictions and the placement of shipping containers would not deter the participants from reaching Islamabad. He urged the authorities not to obstruct what he described as a peaceful public protest.
\nIqbal Khan said increases in petroleum prices directly affected the middle and lower-income segments of society, as higher fuel costs pushed up transportation expenses and the prices of food and other essential commodities. He alleged that the government was meeting its revenue targets by imposing a growing financial burden on the public while failing to reduce what he termed unnecessary government expenditures and privileges enjoyed by the ruling elite.
\nHe said that if the rulers genuinely wanted to improve the national economy, they should first reduce their own perks, protocols and non-essential government spending. Iqbal Khan said fluctuations in international oil prices were a reality, but there was, in his view, no justification for what he termed an \u201cextortion-like\u201d petroleum levy.
\nHe added that repeated increases in petrol prices were contributing to inflation and making daily life more difficult for ordinary citizens.<\/p>\n
The JI leader criticized the reported purchase of an aircraft costing Rs11 billion by the Punjab government, alleging that its use for personal travel amounted to an unnecessary burden on the national exchequer and further aggravated public resentment amid economic hardship.<\/p>\n
He also criticized the government\u2019s reliance on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when responding to public demands for economic relief. He alleged that while recommendations regarding taxation of the wealthy and feudal landowners were discussed, the tax burden continued to fall heavily on ordinary citizens, including some whose incomes were below the taxable threshold.
\nJI Punjab Deputy Ameer Hafiz Tanveer Ahmed, Rawalpindi City Ameer Syed Arif Shirazi, Rawalpindi District Ameer Raja Muhammad Jawad, Murree District Ameer Ghulam Ahmed Abbasi, District Deputy Ameer Raza Ahmed Shah and JI Youth Wing President Mian Yasir Ali Gujjar were also present at the press conference. Iqbal Khan said Jamaat-e-Islami would continue its nationwide public campaign, protests and sit-ins against the petroleum levy and other economic measures that it considers burdensome for the people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jamaat-e-Islami Punjab North Secretary General Iqbal Khan has announced that the party\u2019s \u201cLong March\u201d towards Islamabad will begin on September 20, with caravans from across the country travelling through different cities before converging on the federal capital. At a press conference at the JI office in Rawalpindi, Iqbal Khan said caravans from Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103178,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103157\/revisions\/103178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}