PAT slams government for planning to tax the poor

Pakistan Awami Tehreek central President Sheikh Zahid Fayyaz has said that the government is planning to increase the tax burden on the already suppressed nation. He said that there was only one solution to plethora of the problems facing the country and it was change in the electoral system, adding that change in the electoral system could come about through revolution only. He said that revolution PAT was struggling for was peaceful, green revolution and Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri would announce the course of action for revolution in protest demonstrations to be held under the banner of PAT on May 11.

Sheikh Zahid Fayyaz expressed these views while addressing a quarterly meeting of central body of PAT Lahore yesterday. Muhammad Irshad Tahir, Chaudhry Afzal Gujjar, Hafiz Ghulam Farid, Altaf Randhawa, Sanaullah and Hafiz Usman Haider were also present at the occasion.

PAT central President said that it had become next to impossible for the people to make their both ends meet due to defective economic policies of the government. He said that persistent energy crisis including the electricity and gas load-shedding had turned the people into psychopaths. He said that the recurring practice of increasing tariff of eatables and other necessities of life was akin to sucking blood of the poorest of the poor. He said that sorry state of affairs had compelled the families to commit suicide collectively.

Sheikh Zahid Fayyaz said that PAT was representative party of the downtrodden and less advantageous sections of society which was waging a struggle for restoration of the rights of the poor as enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan. He said that the policy of sucking blood of the poor in the name of improving national economy was no policy at all, adding that it was rather an oppression. He said that following PAT’s revolution, all the looted money would be retrieved from the corrupt. He stated that power, which remained concentrated in a few hands, would be devolved to the people at the grass-roots, saying that this would not only end the elite’s occupation of the state resources but also dent poverty in a big way.