June 22, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 17, 1429

ISLAMABAD, June 21: Lawmakers in the National Assembly on Saturday urged the government to take immediate corrective measures to satisfy the federating units and said if such steps were not taken the country’s solidarity would be facing serious threats.

Finance Minister Syed Naveed Qamar said the government was withdrawing Rs150 million out of Rs628 million already passed as ‘demand No 10’ in respect of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and said the amount would be spent to wind up the bureau.

Meanwhile, 179 demands for grants of Rs133 billion were approved after 324 cut motions in respect of the ministries of interior, health, water and power and planning and development were rejected when the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) withdrew its 24 motions.

The members urged the prime minister to expedite the process of reconciliation with the Balochistan leadership.

Nasrullah Bijarani of the opposition warned of an East Pakistan-like tragedy if certain issues between different provinces were not addressed immediately.

Accusing the government of victimising its political opponents, he said people who had not voted for the parties in power were being ‘crushed’ in remote areas of Sindh.

Former minister Zubaida Jalal said people were not willing to accept certain changes in the administrative system of Balochistan. “They are not ready for changing their areas’ status.”

She urged the government to take notice of what she called incursions of Iranian border forces into Balochistan and said “a big chunk of land” might be lost if they went unchecked. Kashmala Tariq said human smuggling was rampant in remote rural areas of Punjab and Sindh and stressed the need for purging the FIA to make it more ‘responsive’.

Adviser to the PM on Interior Rahman Malik said the government had decided to adopt a three-pronged strategy – political, religious and administrative –for maintaining the law and order situation and countering terrorism and extremism.

He said Nadra’s performance had earned it acclaim, adding that it had secured several international contracts.

He said that issuance of free national identity cards would start from next week, adding that efforts were being made to reduce the time to prepare machine-readable passports.

He said the government had traced the whereabouts of 181 missing people, of whom 20 were from Sindh, 43 from Punjab, 115 from Balochistan and three from the NWFP. The list of missing persons, he said, contained 1,044 names. He told the house that a “96 per cent decline has been observed in terrorist attacks in Sindh and Punjab while they have gone down by 50 per cent in the Frontier province”.

Stressing the need for collective counter-terrorism efforts, he said peace talks were under way in Fata and other areas of the NWFP, adding that three jirgas had already been constituted. “More jirgas are in the pipeline and the dialogue process will continue to preserve the traditions of tribal areas.”

He said a new 50,000-strong security forces would be raised over the next fiscal year to supplement the police force.

Earlier, PPP-S chief Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao urged the government to pursue the cases of six Pakistanis still remaining in the Guantanamo Bay prison besides calling for addressing the “serious problem of missing persons”.

Referring to the recent American attacks in Bajaur and Mohmand tribal agencies, Mr Sherpao said the lower house should also adopt a condemnation resolution on the pattern of the NWFP assembly, which had outrightly rejected such incursions on Pakistani soil.