JI threatens mid-November Islamabad march over petroleum levy
Hafiz Naeemur Rehman says the party will keep its campaign running until the Centre withdraws Rs114 a litre on petrol and Rs100 a litre on diesel.
Jamaat-i-Islami emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman warned on Monday that the party will march on Islamabad in mid-November if Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif does not abolish the petroleum levy, Dawn reported.
The party has been demanding for more than two months that the Centre withdraw the levy, which it puts at Rs114 per litre on petrol and Rs100 per litre on diesel. Dawn reported that the JI says total fuel prices have risen sharply since March because of conflict in the Middle East.
The Express Tribune reported that the JI said it would continue its campaign until the government abolishes the levy. The party also demanded the withdrawal of the emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Tribune reported. Neither report set out the legal or administrative background to that demand.
According to Dawn, the party said a day earlier that Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal and Rana Sanaullah, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister, had contacted JI Vice Emir Liaquat Baloch, and that a meeting had been decided on. The report did not say when the meeting would be held or what it would cover. The warning about the march came a day after those contacts, according to the party's account carried by Dawn.
Neither report carried a response from the Prime Minister's Office or the finance ministry to the mid-November deadline.
The petroleum levy is a per-litre charge fixed by the federal government and included in the retail price of petrol and diesel, which is why the JI's demand is addressed to the Centre.
Aaj News and Aaj English TV listed the petroleum levy, fuel taxes and the interest rate among their 9am headlines on Monday, without adding details of the JI's announcement.
The reports did not give the date, route or size of the planned march, and the party has not said how long it would last. Mid-November would fall roughly three weeks after the warning was issued.
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