Islamabad: Workers of Pakistani religious-political party, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), began on Wednesday an anticorruption campaign on wheels, travelling by train across the country.
JI chief Maulana Sirajul Haq was leading what the party billed a “train march” aimed at mobilising support for its “corruption-free Pakistan movement”.
Participants boarded the Awami Express train at in the northwestern provincial capital, Peshawar on the way to Lahore, capital of central Punjab province.
At Lahore, they were expected to take the Khyber Mail express to the port city of Karachi, capital of southern Sindh province, arriving on Thursday.
The JI chief was to address gatherings at major railway stations during the journey to appeal the masses to “unite for the accountability of the corrupt elite,” the party said in a statement.
The JI train campaign comes amid current national focus on rampant corruption, following the leaked Panama Papers that also mentioned offshore holdings of wealthy Pakistanis including children of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
A 12-member parliamentary committee made up of six lawmakers each from the government and opposition started its deliberations on Wednesday to draft consensus terms of reference for an inquiry commission to be set up to probe disclosures in the Panama leaks.
The panel, notified by National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq on Tuesday, has been mandated to complete its task and present a report to the parliament within a fortnight.
