PESHAWAR, May 4: “We won’t let our brothers down and would work with men side by side in fight against terrorism.”

These were the words of former MPA and Awami National Party vice president Shagufta Malik during a 2009 convention on ‘role of women in peace’ at Nishtar Hall in the provincial capital.

The 33-year-old is now turning out to be true to her words.

Despite terrorist attacks against ANP rallies, she is busy campaigning for her party’s senior leaders.

Well versed in nationalist poetry and a good orator, Ms Shagufta is also prominent among ANP women workers as she has been tasked with going from door to door in ANP leader Asfandyar Wali Khan’s hometown to solicit votes for him.

“I feel proud that I am canvassing for my leader,” Ms Shagufta told Dawn on Saturday.

Asfandyar Wali, grandson of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan popularly known as Bacha Khan, has been advised by party workers not to go to his constituency for election campaign due to threats to his life. He’d barely escaped a terrorist attack in October 2008.

ANP has lost around 750 leaders and workers to terrorism during the last couple of years.

“I am busy with my leaders’ election campaign. At times, I visit areas, where even it is risky for our male colleagues to go,” said Ms Shagufta, who has been campaigning and visiting suburbs of Peshawar, Nowshera, Mardan and Charsadda unannounced.

ANP has been targeted by militants almost in all these places.

“My mother prays when I step out every day for election campaign,” says Ms Shagufta, whose mother, too, hails from a family of Khuda-i-Khidnatgaars of Charsadda.

She said she took part in canvassing even during the last elections but the situation had never been as risky as it was this time around.

The ANP woman leader said the situation was difficult for the party this time as its workers were being attacked everywhere.

She said party workers had advised Asfandyar Wali against visiting his constituency since he was the party chief and the last male member of Bacha Khan’s family left alive.

Ms Shagufta said her party did not want to put its chief’s life in danger to win the elections.

She, however, said the ANP workers were charged despite security threats.

The ANP leader said her was the only political party, which had a clear stand against and condemned those attacking and terrorising innocent people.

“Whether it is a woman or a man associated with Awami National Party, terrorists are attacking them but we won’t back down,” she said.

Ms Shagufta said like other party workers, she was aware of threats to her life but had adopted a strategy under which she was in constant contact with the people by visiting them at their houses unannounced.

“Women should step out and exercise their franchise as I tell them we have to die one day even if we stay home, so fear of death should not stop us from using our right to vote to elect the people who will provide us with security,” she said.

The ANP woman leader said despite threats to her life, she won’t back out of her responsibility to campaign for senior leadership. Ms Shagufta, who belongs to Nowshera, has been active in politics since 2004.

She was the district councilor and ANP district vice president in 2005 and was later elected MPA on one of the seats reserved for women.

Currently, she is on the third position at the ANP priority list for seats reserved for women in the province.