PESHAWAR: Qaumi Watan Party has expressed grave concern over the plight of internally displaced persons (IDPs) of North Wazirisitan Agency and urged Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan to convene an all-party conference (APC) to devise an effective strategy for mitigating their miseries.

The demand for APC was raised during a meeting of the QWP’s election commission held at the party’s central secretariat here on

Sunday. Party’s chairman Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao presided over the meeting.

Prominent among the participants were Sikandar Hayat Sherpao, Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli, former senators Haji Ghufran and Shujaul Mulk, and retired justice Shahjahan.

The participants said that it was duty of the government to take all the stakeholders into confidence before launch of the military operation.

They also expressed dissatisfaction over the measures being taken by the provincial government to ease the plight of the displaced people.

The QWP decided to form committees in the southern districts to provide relief to the affected and monitor the overall situation.

It termed the ban by the Sindh and Punjab governments on the entry of IDPs into the two provinces as unconstitutional and against the basic human rights.

Mr Sherpao said that the political parties and parliamentarians from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) should be taken into confidence with regard to the efforts being made for providing relief to the uprooted families.

He said that the displaced people would not be abandoned at this critical juncture as they had left their homes under unfavourable circumstances.

He asked his party workers throughout Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to extend support to the dislocated people to a possible extent. Mr Sherpao said that it was a challenge for the ruling parties to facilitate the displaced people because they were in dire need of ration, shelter and other necessary items.

Published in Dawn, June 23rd, 2014