29 October 2004	Friday	14 Ramazan 1425

QUETTA, Oct 28: The Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party has decided to launch a protest movement against the government's silence over the drought situation which has caused heavy losses of orchards and livestock in the northern districts of the province.

Speaking at a joint press conference in press club on Thursday, the parliamentary leader of the party in the provincial assembly, Abdur Rahim Ziaratwal, and provincial President Abdur Rauf said that first protest public meeting would be held on the third day of Eidul Fitr in Qila Abdullah and Qila Saifullah.

They said that during last eight years of serious drought 9,511 orchards were destroyed and 4,512,752 fruit trees dried up. Similarly, 4,738,859 livestock were killed, 5,368 tubewells had become inoperative and 80 per cent of the forests damaged.

They claimed that thousands of well-off families affected by the famine had migrated from their ancestral lands to other cities and districts of the province for survival. Lack of interest of the government to highlight the miseries of the destitute to attract international donors had worsened the situation, they added.

The PMAP leaders said that Iranian and Indian governments had taken major steps when confronted with similar situation.

They said that neither the federal nor provincial cabinets had discussed the drought situation and evolve policies to address the problems faced by the drought hit people.

They said that party members had raised the drought issue in the Balochistan Assembly but provincial government, comprising the PML and the MMA, was least interested to resolve the affected people's problems.

Denouncing the government attitude towards the grave situation, the PMAP representatives declared that the party would launch protest meetings, hold processions and give call for wheel-jam and shutter-down strikes soon after the Eidul Fitr to expose the attitude of the anti-people government.