LANDI KOTAL (Khyber Agency), Dec 22: A delegation of at least 50 tribal councillors left for Islamabad on Thursday in a bid to meet the president to request him to solve their problems. Earlier, the Fata councillors had threatened to resign from their respective agency councils when political administrations stopped their monthly stipends and did not called their monthly meetings.

They were also demanding a share in the development funds allocated for their respective tribal agencies.

The agency councils were sworn in on Dec 1, 2004. The political administrations had nominated majority of the councillors.

The councillors had to abandon their protest campaign when their three month stipend was released after a meeting with the NWFP governor in November.

The governor had reportedly promised the council members to look into their grievances and take up the matter with the federal government till Dec 20, 2005.

A spokesman for the councillors, Murad Saqi, told Dawn that except for the release of their stipend, none of the other demands had been accepted nor had they received any positive response from the Governor House or the Governor Secretariat even after the Dec 20 deadline.

Murad Saqi said they had planned to meet Danyial Aziz and would later try to arrange a meeting with the president.

ONE KILLED: Armed men in Bara gunned down the elder brother of the president of the Bara Press Club on Thursday.