PESHAWAR, Jan 9: The Awami National Party on Wednesday held rallies across the NWFP to protest a ban on the movement of wheat flour from Punjab and prolonged electricity and gas loadshedding.

In Peshawar, the ANP organised two rallies. The first rally, which started from Green Hotel and culminated in a public gathering near Takhtu mosque, was addressed by ANP provincial president Afrasiab Khattak, Haji Adeel, Syed Aqil Shah and ANP candidates for National Assembly -- Arbab Najeebullah, Hashim Baber and Arbab Zahir Khan Khalil.

The rally at Khyber Bazaar was addressed by ANP senior vice-president Bashir Ahmed Bilour, city president Malik Mustafa, Alemzeb Khan, Arbab Ayub Jan and others.

Protestors were holding placards and banners inscribed with slogans against President Musharraf and the Punjab government. They threatened to stop gas and electricity supply from the Frontier province to Punjab, if supply of flour was not restored to the province.

Mr Afrasiab said that ANP president Asfandyar Wali Khan had warned the federal and Punjab governments to stop the alleged step-motherly treatment and restore the supply of flour and wheat to the Frontier province.

“Today’s protests are just a rehearsal and if our demands are not met within two weeks, we will be free to besiege all dams and grid stations located in our province,” he said, adding: “Flour and bread are our basic need and right, but the Punjab and federal governments want to deprive the Pukhtuns of this right.”

He said that killing people and bombing residential population were hallmarks of the Musharraf regime.

He said the government was trying to put blame of Benazir’s assassination on the Pukhtuns to create mistrust and rifts among different nationalities.

Bashir Ahmed Bilour said that military rulers had killed Nawab Akbar Bugti in Balochistan, Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi and hundreds of innocent Pukhtuns in Swat and Waziristan. He said that if the Pukhtuns did not unite under the banner of ANP, their survival and existence would be at stake.

The ANP leaders also criticised the caretaker government for supporting PML-Q candidates.