TIMERGARA: Former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister and ANP provincial president Ameer Haider Khan Hoti on Wednesday demanded strict action against self-exiled MQM chief Altaf Hussain for making anti-Pakistan speech and inciting party workers to violence in Karachi.

The demand was made during an ANP worker convention in Ouch area of Lower Dir district. The ANP Lower Dir chapter had organised the event, where party activists showed up from across the district in large numbers.

ANP provincial general secretary and MPA Sardar Hussain Babak, central vice president Zahir Shah Khan, Lower Dir president Hussain Shah Yousafzai and other leaders also spoke on the occasion. Mr. Hoti said Pakhtuns rejected the anti-Pakistan statement of the MQM chief and said the government should deal with Altaf Hussain under the law of the land.

Insists MQM chief made anti-Pakistan speech, incited workers to violence

He criticised the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and said Pakhtuns would never vote again for the PTI as it had deceived them in the name of change.

“Where is the change in the province? A government that doesn’t provide funds even to a councillor cannot initiate development projects,” he said.

The ANP leader insisted the PTI government was involved in the extension of the customs law to Malakand division. He said it was the ANP that led protest campaign against the Customs Act forcing the federal government to withdraw it.

Mr. Hoti said the process of development had stopped in the province and that the chief minister was inaugurating projects initiated by the previous ANP government.

He criticised PTI chief Imran Khan for being ‘not interested in the development of Pakhtun’.

“Imran Khan eyes Islamabad and wants to become the prime minister at all costs,” he said, adding that the PTI chief’s dream would never realise.

The ANP leader said the PTI lawmakers were leveling serious corruption allegations against CM Pervez Khattak and his ministers but Imran Khan had kept silence.

“The boat of the PTI is slowly sinking and Pervez Khattak will be the first person to jump out,” he said.

He said Pakhtuns should unite at the ANP’s platform to claim due rights. Speaking on the occasion, Sardar Hussain Babak said the ANP was kept away from the power corridors at gunpoint by rigging in the 2013 general elections. He said the incidence of lawlessness, target killing, kidnapping for ransom and unemployment in the province was on the rise with the government fooling the people by shouting the slogan of change.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2016