PESHAWAR, July 1: A civil award will be conferred upon a woman activist of the Jamaat-i-Islami in a special ceremony, which is to take place soon, sources said.

The provincial minister for Zakat, Ushr, Women and Social Welfare, Hafiz Hashmat Ali, had ordered the social welfare department to arrange an emergency ceremony to confer the award on Dr Ishrat Irshad, sources said.

The ceremony was scheduled to be held on Wednesday, but the nominee for the award had requested the department to defer it for a few days.

Sources criticised the officials, saying that the nominee, who was presently working in a local private hospital, had no extraordinary achievements to her credit and her only qualification was that she was a JI activist.

Surprisingly, she had not applied for the award on the prescribed form submitted by two dozen other candidates, the source said.

Previously a woman councillor of the district assembly, Shumaila Tabassum had been nominated for the award but some of the other aspirants had appealed against the decision, calling for instituting an inquiry into the matter.

The woman councillor had, through a written application, asked the senior minister to probe into the matter.