ISLAMABAD: PPP Co-Chairman and former president Asif Ali Zardari has asked party workers to spend some time with internally displaced persons of North Waziristan and with families of soldiers and law-enforcement agencies during Eid holidays.

The directive came in the form of a message released by the PPP’s media office on Monday.

“I ask party workers to spend some time of the Eid with internally displaced persons as well as families of soldiers and law-enforcement agencies who are valiantly fighting extremists and militants to defend the motherland,” Mr Zardari said.

Mr Zardari said that “a thought must also be spared for those members of our armed forces, the police, law-enforcement agencies and civilians who have laid down their lives in the fight against militants so that we may truly celebrate Eid in peace”.

“We must... reach out to the IDPs who have been forced to live in tents and makeshift homes in Bannu and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa” because of the military operation in North Waziristan, he said.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2014