KARACHI, 11 August — The Jamaat-e-Islami chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, said here yesterday that the party would serve the citizens of Karachi without discrimination, and without any consideration to their political, religious consideration or social status. “We will serve even our opponents, because power cannot distinguish between friends and foes.”
He made it clear that those who had worked or voted for him, and those who had voted for the rival camps, will be given equal treatments.
“We have come to here. If we are in power today, we are conscious that our responsibilities have increased manifold. We cannot discriminate between anyone, friends or foes we have to serve them all, from the core of our heart,” the Jamaat president said while addressing a gathering of party supporters celebrating the Jamaat victory in Karachi’s municipal elections.
However, the Jamaat chief warned that the administration should help those elected to post of nazims (administrators) and their deputies, because if they tried to create obstacles in their way, then the system will not only not work, but will collapse.
He said that Karachi which had suffered tremendously during the last ten or twelve years, can not only help recover its economy, but can raise a billion dollar investment from abroad. “All we have to do is to rebuild its image as a potentially sound city for investment, and industrialization,” he said.
He asked the government to advise the bureaucracy to support the newly-elected councilors. Resistance from their side would pose problems which the party would not like.
The party chief announced that all its activists, including Niamatullah, who has been elected the new Lord Mayor for Karachi, will serve without remuneration.
Neither the nazims, nor their deputies, nor anyone else elected to the municipal agencies, will accept anything from the government.
“We will work voluntarily, and with a mission,” he said, making it clear that the government offer for cars, bungalows, and other facilities, for the newly-elected, will be turned down.
