Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUIF) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman claimed on Tuesday that he had been offered money and a place in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government in 2013 in exchange for “de-Islamising” the province.
“Some people backed by the ‘Jewish lobby’ had visited me after the 2013 general elections and offered me to join the K-P government in return for helping them eliminate the roots of Islam in the province,” he told reporters after a gathering hosted by his party in Peshawar to welcome dissident members of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) youth wing.
“I was told that only the PTI could change the opinion of the people of K-P towards the Jewish lobby,” Rehman maintained. “I declined the offer as I was aware of its [the K-P government’s] western agenda,” he added.
The JUI-F leader said he was told that funds from abroad would be distributed among some seminaries and clerics. “The main aim of the entire plan was to de-Islamise the province whose people follow Islam in its true spirit,” he remarked.
Rehman went on to claim that as he had rejected the offer, the K-P government had failed miserably in achieving its goals.
“We waged a war against their [Jewish] plans and have defeated them,” he added.
“The funding from abroad has stopped since last year and so the [K-P] government is now compelled to take loans from the Asian Development Bank,” he maintained.
Corruption, he said, had increased during the incumbent government of K-P in comparison with the figures during the tenure of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal government from 2002 to 2008.
Taking a jibe at the Imran Khan-led party’s dharna politics in 2014, the JUI-F chief said: “They [the PTI] spread vulgarity in the name of sit-ins for several months in Islamabad.”
Rehman said young people were now joining the JUI-F and rejecting the PTI and that showed that only his party could resolve the issues of the province.
