QUETTA, Nov 17: Mahmood Khan Achakzai, chief of the Pukthunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP), has urged the rulers to recognize equal rights of the deprived nationalities to steer the country out of the constitutional and political crisis and strengthen democratic institutions.

Speaking at a public meeting in the Pishin football ground on Wednesday, he said the Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement (Ponam) was gaining strength and the people of Pukthunkhwa, Balochistan, Sindh and Seraikistan were backing the programme of the nationalist alliance.

Mr Achakzai said that Ponam was formed to get equal rights for the oppressed nationalities, struggle collectively against the domination of Punjab and to curb army intervention in political affairs of the country.

He alleged that anti-people rulers that enjoyed the support of army generals always protected the interest of the big province at the cost of the deprived nationalities to continue their exploitation.

The PMAP leader claimed that his party was not anti-Pakistan nor against the army as an institution, but they were fighting against oppressors who were looting resources belonging to Pukhtuns, Balochs, Sindhis and Seraikis and those who were involved in subverting the constitution.

He said political parties and the rulers must accept the ground realities that without accepting the national rights of the smaller nationalities to control their resources, there would no political stability in the country.

Mr Achakzai also condemned what he described as the opportunistic role of the Muttahida Majlis Amal and maintained that the religious alliance was responsible for strengthening the hands of the military dictatorship by endorsing the 17th Amendment in parliament.

He said that the MMA leadership was neither sincere to enforce Shariat nor believed in the rule of the constitution, adding that the main interest of the MMA was to keep its government intact in provinces to continue corruption in the name of Islam.

Referring to the situation in Pukhtun areas, he accused the establishment of keeping the areas divided in different administrative set-ups. The rulers were against giving an ethnic entity to the Pukhtun province, he added.

He claimed that the PMAP was striving to unite the divided Pukhtun areas in one united political administrative province. Mr Achakzai voiced concern at the passive attitude of the government over grave drought-like situation in some districts of the province where Pukhtuns lived and denounced the government for not highlighting famine in order to get assistance from the international donor agencies to meet the requirements of victim.

He warned that if the government failed to redress the miseries of drought-hit areas, people would launch a civil disobedience movement to protect rights of the victims.

The leader blamed the government for double standard in the recovery of bank loans from the debtors and claimed that federal government had waived off billions of rupees of PML leader Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and other influential figures, but poor borrowers had been put behind the bars for failure to return money. Abdur Rauf, Usman Kakar, Sardar Mustafa Tareen and Maulvi Wazir Akundzada also spoke on the occasion.