LANDI KOTAL / PESHAWAR, Jan 5: Pakistan People’s Party Senator Babar Awan on Saturday rejected the interior ministry allegation about involvement of tribesmen in the murder of party chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Addressing party workers at the residence of PPP candidate for NA-45 Engineer Eshratullah Shinwari, he said that tribesmen were peace-loving people and always guarded the country’s western frontiers without any material gains.

Criticising the government’s Fata policy, he said that President Musharraf had pitted the army against innocent tribesmen to appease western powers.

He demanded an immediate halt to military operations in the tribal areas and called for a political solution to the conflict. He called upon the new army chief not to follow the previous government’s policy on the tribal areas because countless innocent tribesmen had been killed and made homeless in the military operations over the last three to four years.

Mr Awan accused President Musharraf of destroying all governmental institutions and warned that the country was heading towards polarisation between the federating units. “President Musharraf considers himself above the Constitution, above the federation and above the state, while the PPP considers people as the real source of power.”

He said that Ms Bhutto wanted to visit the tribal areas, but her untimely death could not allow her to materialise her wish. He said that after coming into power his party would investigate the misappropriation of millions of dollars given by the donor countries for the development of tribal areas.

The PPP leader said that the Political Parties Act, 1962 would be extended to Fata and its people would be provided their basic constitutional rights.

Fateha for the slain PPP leader was also offered on the occasion.

Meanwhile, speaking at a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club, Mr Awan demanded an independent inquiry into the assassination of Ms Bhutto under a United Nations commission.

He said the PPP could not trust in any investigation by the sitting regime whose interior ministry had misled the nation by taking three different stands on the murder of Ms Bhutto. He said the government on its own could not register a murder case. It was the sole right of a complainant to get an FIR registered. “First, the government has registered the FIR and then tried to implicate Baitullah Mehsud and his followers in it.”

He added that Ms Bhutto in an email message she sent to her lobbyist in the United States said that if she was killed, President Pervez Musharraf would be responsible.

Mr Awan said his party wanted to register an FIR against President Musharraf in the light of her email which was, in fact, her dying statement.

He said that the PPP had never asked for any assistance from the Scotland Yard in the murder of Ms Bhutto. He said if the government was interested in getting benefit from the British investigators, it should send them to the Marri-Bugti area to investigate how Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti had been killed.

He alleged that the government had destroyed all evidence after the assassination of Ms Bhutto. He said the PPP would not back out of its demand for the investigation by a UN commission.

Mr Awan criticised the PML-Q leaders and said they were trying to trigger a civil war in Sindh by issuing vitriolic statements, but the PPP would foil their nefarious designs.

He said that if the elections were rigged, people would have to choose one – either Pervez Musharraf or Pakistan. “Pakistan and its people always suffered at the hands of military rulers, but the PPP would not allow them to dismember the country.