ISLAMABAD/PESHAWAR: The federal government has taken serious notice of decisions taken by jirgas of Peshawar’s Sheikhan, Bhana Mari and Hazar Khani union councils not to allow women to cast votes in the local elections to be held on Thursday.

On the directive of the Prime Minister’s Adviser on Women Development, Ms Nilofar Bakhtiar, the president of the NWFP women’s wing of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League has lodged a complaint with the provincial election commissioner against the jirgas’ decisions.

Talking to Dawn, Ms Bakhtiar said: “I had asked the president of PML’s women wing in NWFP, Ms Nighat Orakzai, to formally lodge a complaint with the returning officer concerned through the provincial election commissioner against the jirga decision.”

She said: “I have also taken up the issue with the chief election commissioner and the NWFP chief minister, and both have promised to take every legal action against the elements who are stopping women from participating in the local government elections”, Ms Bakhtiar said.

The provincial government, she said, had assured the federal government to take appropriate steps to ensure that women voters exercised their right to vote.

In the first incident a jirga of the Sheikhan union council, held on Monday under the chairmanship of Haji Rahat Khan and attended by six panels of nazims and naib nazims and candidates for the post of councillors, unanimously decided not to allow women voters to come to polling stations. A similar decision was taken by the other two jirgas on Tuesday.

Ms Bakhtiar said: “I am determined to ensure that women are allowed to take part in the elections and the culprits are handed down due punishment which can be imprisonment from six months to three years.

She said the federal government had also been in constant touch with the provincial minister for women development.