PESHAWAR, March 10: The Awami National Party has expressed deep concern over what it has termed the killing of innocent women and children in tribal areas in the name of war against terrorism and has pledged to protect tribal people through legal and democratic means.

“The Awami National Party cannot distance itself from frequent incidents of bloodshed of tribal population and will continue to defend their rights and provide them security,” Awami National Party provincial secretary general Mian Iftikhar Hussain said while talking to delegations of party workers from tribal areas here on Friday.

He said the root-cause of the unrest in Fata were wrong policies of the government which might lead to a civil war in that part of the country.

Mian Iftikhar said his party was against the government’s plan to fence the Pakistan-Afghan border because it considered that the action would aggravate the situation. People on both sides of the border, he said, had centuries-old linguistic, cultural and religious ties and they could not be separated by fences.

GHANIDAD TO JOIN ANP: Meanwhile, a party press statement issued on Friday said that former provincial minister and leader of the PPP-Sherpao M. Ghanidad would formally join the Awami National Party on March 14.