By Zaheer Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan, on Thursday, urged scholars and writers to guide the nation on the path to progress, terming corruption and deterioration of ethics as the biggest challenges.

Addressing a function at the Academy of Letters after inaugurating “Hall of Fame” here on Thursday, the prime minister said that the menace of corruption and absence of ethics can be dealt with through an intellectual revolution.

He said that he does not have any personal enmity with the two families (Sharif and Zardari), and is against the corruption.

“People are asking me why I don’t shake hands with the leader of the opposition (Shehbaz Sharif) – facing corruption cases of billions of rupees. If I shake hands with him its mean I get corruption accepted in the society,” the prime minister said.

He said that a nation is destroyed when it fails to differentiate between good and bad.

The premier said that in parliaments óf the Western countries horse trading, like in Pakistan’s senate election, is unimaginable and no one involved in corruption can become a member of the parliament and make two hour long speeches simply because their moral standards are very high.

The prime minister said that the role of scholars, today, is even more important than even before for ethics of the people and for keeping them intact with their civilization. Scholars and writers are guards of the ideology of the country.

The prime minister also stated that role of scholars was very important during the Golden Era of Islam.

The prime minister said that the biggest challenge of the society in Pakistan is that corruption was accepted and the absence of ethics, He hoped that scholars would guide the society and put the society in the right direction.

The prime minister said that Islam was spread through an intellectual revolution and change of character and not by sword.

He added that the government would provide full backing and support to the scholars because they are opinion makers and help bring about change in the character of the youths.

He said that opening of “hall of fame” is a big step towards the direction of a ‘Naya Pakistan’.

The prime minister regretted that people had very little knowledge about Islamic history.

He further stated that there is huge pressure on the youth due to social media and the scholars can play a very important role to educate them against this attack on the society.

The prime minister said that increase in sex crime is a challenge for the country and all this was happening because of the social media content in access of youth through mobile phones.

This article first appeared in Business Recorder