ISLAMABAD, January 11: Ameer, Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan, Senator Sirajul Haq, has urged the government to request the outgoing US President Obama to order the release of Pakistan’s respectable lady Dr A’fia Siddiqui along with around 1300 other prisoners under special clemency.
He was talking to the media outside the Supreme Court after the hearing of the Panama Leaks case on Wednesday.
Sirajul Haq said that US President Obama who was to relinquish his office on January 20, had already ordered the release of nearly 1300 prisoners under his special powers. He said he was sure that if the Foreign Office appealed to Obama for the clemency to Dr Aafia Siddiqui, there would be a positive response. He said he would personally talk to the Foreign Ministry and also raise the issue in the Senate. He said that Dr Aafia Siddiqui was a respectable Pakistani lady who had been in US jail for no cause, and it was obligatory for the government to make every effort for her release.
The JI chief repeated his demand that the Supreme Court larger bench hearing the case should direct Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to stop functioning till the decision of the case. He said he was not demanding Prime Minister’s resignation as that would be before time. However, he said that since four members of the Prime Minister’s family had been named in the Panama leaks, he should be asked to stop functioning to ensure free and impartial probe into the matter by the NAB, the FIA and other state institutions and agencies.
Sirajul Haq said that the rulers were the root cause of corruption and all other evils in the society and loot and plunder of the public money could not be stopped sans the accountability of the rulers.
He said that the Panama papers were genuine and the Prime Minister had admitted that the names of his sons were in these papers and had also offered himself for accountability.
He said that bench hearing the Panama leaks case comprised of able and competent judges and the JI expected a good judgment from them.-Sabah
