Leaders of Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) on Thursday termed India's offer to allow investment a ruse designed to destabilise the country and urged patriotic businessmen not to fall in this trap. The JI's Ameer Syed Munawar Hasan said that India was Pakistan "enemy No1", which was continuously trying to weaken this country in a planned manner.
Reminding the countrymen of India's "water aggression", he said that India had built 62 dams over various Pakistani rivers in a bid to deny this country its water share. India, he said, wanted to convert Pakistan into a desert, destroying its industry, agriculture and economy, making Pakistan totally dependant, forcing it to import everything from India.
This was part of new Delhi's scheme to emerge as the "regional policeman", adding that it enjoyed full US support in this regard. Pakistani rulers, he said, were blindly "assisting India through their wrong policies". Describing the ongoing energy crisis an artificial one, he said that it was designed to compel Pakistani investors to shift their capital abroad. "Almost 40 percent of the country's industry has already been shifted to Bangladesh and elsewhere," adding that the rest would be tempted to do so after the Indian offer.
First, Munawar Hasan said, the hands of the Pakistanis had been tied by opening up trade with India, subsequently India was allowed a corridor to Afghanistan. Now, he said, Nato and the US were given free hand to carry anything to Afghanistan over this country's soil.
He said that through these steps, the country's independence and sovereignty had been compromised. "The enemy is violating our borders every day, but our armed forces or our civilian rulers were least bothered about it." In a separate statement, JI's Secretary-General Liaquat Baloch said that India's move to allow Pakistani investment was a conspiracy. He said that despite declaring Pakistan a most-favoured nation, Pakistan's balance-sheets showed huge losses. Trade liberalisation, according to him, proved to be beneficial for India.
Noting that Pakistan's economy was primarily agrarian and dependent on river water for irrigation, he said that India had built "several dams in Kashmir, which is Pakistan's lifeline, ruining our agriculture". Accusing India of being involved in terrorism "in this country, especially in Balochistan", he said, Pakistani capitalists should demonstrate their love for the country by turning down the Indian offer.