Shaykh-ul-Islam Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri has said that Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah did not make Pakistan for a privileged few but for the poor Muslims. He said that industrialists, feudal lords and the moneyed classes were violating the rights of the poor with abandon for last 65 years. He said that MQI’s public awareness campaign was a movement for change before the 23rd of December but it had become a movement of revolution now. He said that the poor would break the arrogance of the powerful people on the 14th of January. He said that he would not be sucked into blame game and would not respond to a campaign of slander, character assassination and abuses.

He asked the religious scholars and Mashyakh to play the same role which they played during the freedom struggle under the leadership of Quaid-e-Azam. He warned that if elections were held without electoral reforms, the same crop of corrupt leaders would return to the assemblies with even graver implications for the country’s economy and society. He said that if it happened so, it would be a conspiracy to dent the federation of Pakistan as the country was already reeling under immense burden and was unable to sustain another period of loot and plunder for five more years.

Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri expressed these views while addressing Ulama and Mashaykh Convention held in Model Town on January 3. Pir Khawaja Ghulam Qutub-ud-Din Faridi, Sahibzada Dewan Ahmed Masood Chishti, Pir Sahibzada Nabi Amin, Pir Hamidullah Jan Saifi, Pir Masood Ahmad Lasani, Pir Sayyid Nafees-ul-Hassan Bokhari, Dr Jamil-ur-Rehman Chishti, Pir Abdul Bari Qadri, Sayyid Sajjad Badsha, Tahir Hussain Zanjani, Zakir Zanjani, Pir Tabassum Bashir Owaisi, Pir Saeed Ahmed Sabri, Dr Kashif Ali Sultan, Pir Sayyid Amir Hussain Gillani, Sayyid Ghulam Mohi-ud-Din Qadri, Pir Mian Muhammad Bashir Hayat, Sahibzada Mohib-un-Nabi, Pir Asadullah Ghalib and 250 renowned Mashaykh attended the Convention.

Mashaykh extended unqualified and unstinted support to Long March and vowed to attend it with hundreds of thousands of their followers.

Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri declared that he would leave Lahore for Islamabad along with a caravan of three hundred thousand people and reach federal capital with four million people. He said that the people would not return until their fundamental demands would be met. He said that he would not go via motorway rather would join the people of Pakistan through GT Road. He said that ocean of people would rage peacefully for democratic change in the country.

Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri said that he did not make any demand from the corrupt politicians, adding that the people knew how to get their rights. He said that people’s government would be formed on the 14th of January. He said that miseries, tears and plight of the poor and downtrodden sections of society were his power. He said that Pakistan came into being as a result of blessings of the Saints and their progeny would play critical role in saving it. He said that what passed off as politics in the country was a sham. He said that it was about time that the country was saved from the plunderers.