Jamaat-i-Islami chief Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman announced Thursday that his party would hold sit-ins at 510 points nationwide against the petroleum levy, with key inter-district roads set to be blocked from 4pm on Friday (today) as part of what he called a peaceful protest against fuel prices and inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking at a rally organised by the party\u2019s women\u2019s wing on Wahdat Road in Lahore, Rehman said ambulances would be given unobstructed passage throughout the demonstrations. However, he warned that any attempt by authorities to disrupt the protest would push the campaign toward becoming a movement against the government. \u201cIf obstacles are created or our peaceful protest against the petroleum levy is blocked, this campaign will turn into an anti-government movement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He demanded that petrol prices be reduced to Rs225 per litre, calling the petroleum levy a form of \u201cextortion\u201d rather than a legitimate tax. He claimed the government was charging Rs125 in taxes on every litre of petrol sold while simultaneously spending on luxury aircraft and expensive official vehicles for its own use. He also alleged that Rs8 trillion had been collected through the levy over time without any of it being channelled into upgrading refineries or petroleum infrastructure. Pointing to global crude prices, he noted that fuel rates had previously been hiked citing pressures from regional conflicts, but had not come down even after crude oil fell to $74 a barrel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The JI chief said the government would be held responsible for the consequences if it failed to meet the public\u2019s demands, and argued the economy would benefit from scrapping the levy altogether. He accused the ruling coalition of being disconnected from the everyday struggles of citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rehman said women across the country were finding it increasingly difficult to manage household expenses amid inflation, with some resorting to selling their jewellery just to get by. He also took aim at what he called unequal access to education, an unresponsive bureaucracy, and growing restrictions on public dissent, saying these pointed to a broader breakdown in governance. He further accused the government of following IMF directives and imposing what he termed an \u201canti-people\u201d budget instead of cutting its own spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Urging people from Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to take part, Rehman called for widespread participation in the sit-ins and specifically appealed to young people to join the protest on motorcycles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jamaat-i-Islami chief Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman announced Thursday that his party would hold sit-ins at 510 points nationwide against the petroleum levy, with key inter-district roads set..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/paksouch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-07-174243-1.png",803,481,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/paksouch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-07-174243-1-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/paksouch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-07-174243-1-300x180.png",300,180,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/paksouch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-07-174243-1-768x460.png",768,460,true],"large":["https:\/\/paksouch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-07-174243-1.png",803,481,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/paksouch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-07-174243-1.png",803,481,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/paksouch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-07-174243-1.png",803,481,false]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Pakistan<\/a>","tag_info":"Pakistan","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paksouch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paksouch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paksouch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paksouch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paksouch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paksouch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9818,"href":"https:\/\/paksouch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9816\/revisions\/9818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paksouch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paksouch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paksouch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paksouch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}