June 28, 2003	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 27,1424

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PESHAWAR, June 27: The Chairman, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Mr Afrasiab Khattak, has termed President Musharraf’s claims about the presence of Al Qaeda in tribal region a propaganda aimed at achieving his own “vested interests.”

He said the military government was giving wrong reports to the United States that the Pukhtun region was the hub of terrorism and “mullah” and the “military” had alleged that the joined hands to accomplish their vested interests.

He was speaking at a seminar entitled “Pukhtun Politics and New Political Global Scenario” organized by the Commission for Minority Rights in collaboration with South Asia Partnership and Action Aid Pakistan at a local hotel.

The speakers included Afrasiab Khattak, ANP General Secretary Abdul Latif Afridi, ANP Central Information Secretary Haji Adeel and journalist Behroz Khan.

The speakers termed the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government a democratic version of Taliban and blamed the Intelligence agencies for the creation of this situation. They said that the MMA stood for the “Military-Mullah Alliance”.

“In the present the global scenario, Pukhtuns are being presented to the world as extremists and they are being targeted as terrorists and the government is inviting trouble for the Pukhtuns but actually the roots of terrorism are in the Arab world not in the Pukhtun-dominated areas,” Mr Khattak claimed.

He also said all terrorists were captured from Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi so it was quite clear that Pukhtuns regions were not the hub of terrorism.

Just as the Taliban bulldozed the Afghan culture and tried to crush the Afghan nationality to give it a new Arab outlook, the MMA government was doing the same thing in the NWFP, he claimed.

Abdul Latif Afridi said that Pakistan invested millions of rupees on the Taliban and after their fall in Afghanistan the agencies again created the Taliban in the shape of the MMA.

He alleged that the military government let the US forces come in Fata and gave them a base so that the US forces could launch their war against Pukhtuns.

“Pukhtun are treated like a minority in Pakistan and to add injury to insult they are targeted as terrorists in the war against terrorism due to the wrong reports of Intelligence agencies,” he observed.

He termed the MMA government a gift of Intelligence agencies as the MMA was funded by them so that they could invite the US to their region to fulfil their own interests.

He said Pukhtuns wanted peace in the region and wanted the government to eradicate all Jihadi organizations and terrorists from the area.

Mr Haji Adeel said that MMA was a democratic version of Taliban.