PESHAWAR, March 21: The Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) has endorsed a call for general strike on March 31 given by the Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement to express solidarity with the people of Balochistan.
Speaking at a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Monday, PMAP provincial chairman Mukhtiar Khan Yousufzai said his party was a component of Ponam which had been struggling for the rights of oppressed nations since its inception.
He said PMAP Chairman Mahmood Khan Achakzai would arrive in Peshawar on March 24 where he would stay till March 31 to supervise the arrangements for the strike in the province.
Mr Yousufzai hoped that the transporters’ community, traders, shopkeepers and general public would express their solidarity with the people of Balochistan and denounce price-hike and lawlessness in the country by observing a day-long shutter-down and wheeljam strike on March 31. The PMAP would foil the efforts of Punjabi rulers for the construction of controversial Kalabagh dam, he added.
He said that the Kalabagh dam had been designed to irrigate the barren lands of retired generals in the southwest of Punjab.
Mr Yousufzai said the present coalition government was trying to render the Baloch into a minority group within their own homeland, but the Baloch were resisting all pressure.
He said the civil-cum-military bureaucracy of Punjab had been denying that Pakistan was a multicultural country where all nationalities had equal rights being federating units of the country.
TESCO: The Tribal Electric Supply Company (Tesco) has disconnected power connections of about 4,000 commercial consumers and 54 tubewells in the Bajaur Agency because of non-payment of electricity dues.
According to a press release issued here on Monday, the company had taken the action in view of accumulation of a huge amount in arrears.
The action had been taken under a recently-launched campaign aimed at eliminating illegal connections, installing power meters and starting recovery of electricity charges and arrears in Fata, the press release said.
It said that during a meeting with a delegation of traders from the Bajaur Agency here on Monday, Tesco Chief Executive Hidayatullah Kundi expressed his inability to fix flat rates for Fata.
Members of the delegation expressed their willingness to pay electricity dues if they were calculated at a flat rate.
In reply to their suggestion, the Tesco chief executive said the authority to fix flat rate rested with the NWFP governor, who is the administrative head of Fata, and Minister of State for Water and Power Amir Muqam Khan.
He assured them that he would convey their proposal to the state minister.
