Daily Times

LAHORE – Former Jamaat-e-Islami leader Syed Munawar Hassan has said that nobody should expect any good from a meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in Paris.

“This (meeting) was only a sudden, informal, meant for public consumption and it did not have any link with the improvement in the regional situation,” he said this while talking to journalists at the Allama Iqbal International Airport upon his arrival from Karachi on Tuesday afternoon.

Munawar said that the Indian secularism was in fact a Hindu secularism. “Just as the western world is in the grip of Christian secularism, similarly the Indian government is a ‘puppet’ in the hands of Hindu secularism,” he said. He also said that ‘increasing extremism’ had exposed the democratic and secular face of India.

On political issues, he said that the Jamaat-PTI electoral alliance in Karachi had given much hope that it would steer not only Karachi but the national politics out of crisis. He said that the people of Karachi had heaved a sigh of relief due to the Karachi operation but the results of the operation had not been visible as had been expected.

Munawar said that the liaison between the people and the rangers should be increased for this purpose. He said that in fact there had not been any accountability of the MQM or the PPP otherwise Asif Zardari would not have been acquitted nor the MQM hoodlums would have been roaming around freely.

He said the Election Commission was a silent spectator on the violations of the election rules and code of conduct in Karachi although it was its responsibility to take notice of the irregularities. The former Jamaat chief said the Jamaat-PTI alliance for the local bodies’ elections had given hope to the people and they seemed to be ready to ignore the MQM and support the alliance.