May 22, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 05, 1428

MARDAN, May 21: Federal Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao has termed terrorist actions and suicide bombings cowardly acts, adding that such activities cannot create hatred among people.

Addressing on Sunday a large gathering in the Peepal village — where a local group joined the PPP (Sherpao) — he said that the party would continue to struggle against terrorism and illiteracy and would serve the masses.

Criticising the recent spate of suicide bombings, he said that such devious acts could not create rifts in the society and vowed that the nefarious designs of terrorists would be foiled.

Urging the people to use their right to vote positively and reject incompetent representatives, he said that if the PPP-S was again voted to power, it would help people build a better society based on principles of justice, guaranteeing them jobs.

Deriding public representatives who, according to him, had bagged votes in the name of Islam and then betrayed voters, he said that during their past four and a half years of rule, development funds had been used up in only a few districts in the province.

Mr Sherpao also criticised people who, according to him, claimed to be the champions of Pakhtuns, he said that they had also done nothing for people’s welfare.

The federal government had completed a record number of development projects in remote areas of the Frontier province despite the non-cooperative attitude of the MMA government.

Mr Sherpao announced a development package for the area, which included setting up of a passport office, a post office, construction of link roads, inducting local youths in the Frontier Constabulary, installing transformers, and sinking tube-wells.