TIMERGARA: Jamaat-i-Islami emir Sirajul Haq has demanded of the government to declare the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) as a separate province so that its people could get their due rights.

Addressing the inauguration ceremony of the office of district development advisory committee (DDAC) at the district council hall here the other day, The JI chief said that nearly 10 million tribal Pakhtuns had still been living without basic facilities. He demanded of the government to declare Fata as a separate province and Peshawar as a brave city, and elevate the status of Army Public School, Peshawar, to the university level.

Take a look: Governing Fata: The big debate

He said that the government should take practical steps for bringing the warring Baloch people to the mainstream. He asked the government to avoid harassing religious seminaries and their three million students.

Mr Haq said the time was rife for bringing revolutionary changes in the society through pen. He said that the western powers had always supported dictatorships in the third world countries. He blamed the western powers and America for politically destabilising the Islamic countries, including Pakistan. He said that Pakhtuns were being targeted for their struggle to defeat the USSR and Nato troops in Afghanistan.

Earlier, Lower Dir deputy commissioner Mohammad Suhail Khan administered oath to the new DDAC chairman Saeed Gul, who replaced Muzaffar Syed, the sitting finance minister. Heads of the government departments, MNA Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, Maulana Asadullah, Upper Dir DDAC chairman Malik Behram and elders of the area attended the ceremony.

Sirajul Haq says tribal people yet to get basic facilities

Lower Dir JI chief Izazul Mulk claimed on the occasion that a JI team had collected information about corrupt and inefficient government officers. He said that a report in this regard would soon be sent to Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and the PTI and JI chiefs. He said that incidents of robbery and car-lifting had increased in the district.

MEDICAL CAMP: The army in collaboration of Merlin, an NGO working in health sector in Dir, held a free medical camp at Khanpur village of Adenzai on Wednesday.

Patients, including women and children, were examined by civil and military doctors and provided laboratory tests facility and medicines. Speaking on the occasion, Commandant Dir Scouts Col Nasr Umar Hayat asked the residents to properly inform the administration before renting out their houses and shops to people they did not know.

Qaumi Watan Party leader Bakht Baidar, PPP district president Khurshid Ali Khan and Dir Lower ANP president Hussain Shah were also present on the occasion.

Published in Dawn January 22nd , 2015

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