May 16, 2007	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 28, 1428

PESHAWAR, May 15: The Awami National Party, People’s Party Parliamentarian, Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party and Pakistan Muslim League (N) on Tuesday termed the bomb blast in Peshawar an act of secret agencies to divert attention from the Karachi carnage.

ANP information secretary Zahid Khan told Dawn that the ANP was deeply shocked over precious human losses in the blast at a crowded restaurant in Peshawar.

He said that secret agencies and extremist elements were bent upon to spread a wave of terror and uncertainty on the soil of the Pakhtuns.

He said that the Peshawar incident occurred at a time when the Pakhtuns were still wailing over the blood-bathing of their brothers at the hands of a fascist organisation in Karachi.

ANP NWFP president Afrasiab Khattak said that the federal and provincial government failed to protect the lives and properties of the people.

They said that poor and peaceful people were bearing the brunt of the wrong policies of the government.

He said that the killing of people in the busiest interior City was aimed at creating fear and panic among the people.

He demanded that the government should adopt concrete steps to end the wave of violence in the country otherwise resign from power.

Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party NWFP president Mukhtar Khan Yousafzai termed it an act of secret agencies saying that through a pre-planned conspiracy the Pakhtun soil was being targeted for terrorism and converted into a land of violence.

“The Pakhtuns are being terrorised so that they could not unite for their political rights and gatherings.”

He said that we were weeping over the massacre of Pakhtuns in Karachi that another gift of dead bodies was given by the secret agencies and their cronies in Peshawar.

Jamaat-e-Islami leader and MMA MNA Shabir Ahmed Khan said that the Peshawar bomb explosion was a result of acting as front line state in the so-called war against terror and a consequence of flopped and failed policies of the Musharraf government, which had been imposed on the nation by force.

He demanded that General Musharraf should resign from power at once in order to save the country men from further bloodshed.

He said that the Peshawar incident happened after three days of the Karachi carnage where an ally of the Musharraf government killed workers of political parties and sabotaged the peaceful atmosphere of the city to pave way for imposing emergency in the country.

PPP NWFP president Rahimdad Khan said that the MQM involvement in the Peshawar incident could not be ruled out as the armed activists of the MQM killed and injured dozens of political workers in Karachi at the behest of General Musharraf.

He said that the bomb blast in Peshawar was done to divert attention from the MQM fascism and state-sponsored terrorism.

PML-N NWFP president and former chief minister Pir Sabir Shah demanded the government should accept the responsibility and tender resignation.

As a result of irrational and self-cantered government policies hundreds of innocent people for the last few months have lost their precious lives in different tragic incidents including bomb blasts, targeted killings and fascist approach of a government coalition party, he said.