PESHAWAR, June 22: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf believes that some hidden hand is involved in the terrorist activities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and that there is a need for improving the role of intelligence agencies to counter them.

This was stated by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Health and provincial spokesman for PTI Shaukat Ali Yousufzai during the ‘mulaqat programme’ of Khyber Union of Journalists at Peshawar Press Club on Saturday.

“PTI from the very beginning has been advocating for dialogue with the Taliban but the successive governments never paid heed to it. The US is not in favour of dialogue as whenever the process began, it (US) sabotaged it by carrying out drone attacks. The Taliban have denied involvement in the mosque blast that means some hidden hand is involved in terrorism,” he said.

The spokesman for PTI said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa already faced terrorism and it was need of the hour to overcome the menace otherwise the flames of its fire could engulf Islamabad and other parts of the country, too.

“The federal government should withdraw security forces from all regions of Fata besides stopping operations and blocking drone attacks.

We will fully support the federal government if it revisits its foreign policy in accordance with the people’s wishes,” he said.

Mr Yousafzai said all kinds of external interference should be stopped in affairs of Afghanistan and let the people decide their fate.

He said peace in Afghanistan meant peace in Pakistan.

The spokesman for PTI said it was not a conventional war, but a global war against terrorism.

“We need to bring Taliban to the negotiation table as use of force is not a wise solution,” he said.

Mr Yousafzai asked the PML-led government to revisit all policies for sole objective of peace and come out with a concrete policy by taking all stakeholders on board in this regard.

It would be important to make changes in the foreign policy, which would prove helpful in restoration of durable peace in the country, he stressed.

The spokesman for PTI warned that the situation would worsen in the coming days if the government did not come up with a strong policy on war against terrorism and establishment of peace.

He condemned the suicide attack at a mosque in Peshawar and said no Muslim could carry out such attacks.

Mr Yousafzai announced compensation of Rs0.3 million for each deceased and Rs0.1 million for each injured person.

He said eradication of corruption was another top priority of his government where action would be taken against all those found involved in any kind of malpractices, misuse of powers and kickbacks in transfers, postings and recruitments.

The spokesman for PTI said if ministers were not involved in corruption, then how the government could allow bureaucrats to do so.

“We will sack all those recruited on basis of corruption and give them a chance to apply for the same posts on basis of merit,” he said.

Mr Yousafzai said his government believed in austerity and that was why it cut expenditure of the Chief Minister’s House and Governor’s House by 50 per cent.

“We for the first time devised a plan to reform police system by bringing thana and patwari culture to an end. The revenue record will be prepared through IT department to overcome the exploitation of the people by patwaris,” he said.

The spokesman for PTI said the provincial government would also focus on development work, saying Rs118 billion has been allocated for development reflecting a greater pro-people policies of the PTI government.

He said the monitoring system would be improved to ensure merit policy in all departments.

“We will ensure presence of the health staff, including senior doctors, on duty. There will be a complete ban on spurious medicines, while the Health Regulatory Authority will be activated to overcome the problems,” he said.

Mr Yousafzai said services of a consultancy firm would also be hired to help control the problems and that he as a minister would move the court as representative of patients in case of any injustices with them.