PA admits motion on rocket attacks: Holiday on death anniversaries of 4 caliphs sought
By Bureau Report
PESHAWAR, March 25: The provincial assembly has admitted a joint adjournment motion for a debate on the situation arising out of Tuesday's rocket attacks in Peshawar in the wake of Wana operation.
The motion was tabled by PPP's Abdul Akbar Khan and MMA's Pir Mohammad Khan. Speaking on the admissibility of the motion, Mr Abdul Akbar said the attacks had exposed the weaknesses of the security system.
He regretted that the Pukhtun land had been target of invaders for centuries. Every invader, notably Alexander of Macedonia, had plundered the innocent people in this part of the world, he said.
Successive military rulers, he went on, had made the Pukhtun land a battleground for their own petty gains. Gen Zia brought in foreigners and dubbed them Mujahideen and used them as cannon fodder in the Afghan war and another general was now painting them as terrorists.
He said every usurper had robbed the people of this area and tried to subjugate them. Mr Pir Mohammad was of the view that the rocket attacks had come in retaliation against the Wana operation. He asked the government to stop the operation. If continued, he warned, violence might engulf the entire belt.
The house unanimously admitted the motion for discussion. Later, six resolutions were adopted. The house demanded a sub- office of the federal education board in Peshawar, urged the federal government to declare holidays on the death anniversaries of four caliphs, sought extension of the local call distance to 60km from 25km, called for an equal distribution of Malaysian visas to all the federating units, demanded the setting up of a Darul Kifalah for shelterless women and lifting of the ban on the registration of seminaries.
The house also unanimously demanded that the provincial government should enhance the annual scholarship amount from Rs500 to Rs1,000. It adopted two more resolutions with majority about the construction of a stadium in Mardan and cricket playing rights for other districts whose players could not play in the Peshawar team.
The resolutions were tabled by Mian Nisar Gul from Karak, MMA's Mohammad Ibrahim Qasmi, Alamzeb Umarzai of PPP-S, Syed Qalb-i-Hasan and Bashir Bilour of the Awami National Party, Zain Nargas, Amanat Shah and Muzaffar Said of the MMA, respectively.
Earlier, Dr Salim Khan, Mukhtiar Ali and Amir Rehman, all from Swabi, criticized Education Minister Fazle Ali, also from Swabi, for making appointments of Class-IV employees in the district without consulting them.
Dr Salim pointed out that he had donated land for the boys and girls college, but the minister didn't bother to talk to him. After a prolonged debate, Speaker Bakht Jahan Khan advised them to resolve the issue in his chamber.
Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani tabled an adjournment motion against the 'anti-people' attitude of the Abbottabad town municipal officer and demanded his removal from the city.
However, PML-Q's Nisar Safdar Jadoon opposed any action against the TMO and offered his services for a patch-up between Mr Ghani and the TMO. The chair asked the mover to come to his chamber and resolve the matter through negotiations. Mr Abdul Akbar tabled an adjournment motion against the closure of private educational institutions in the Hayatabad Township.
