HARIPUR, Feb 27: Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub Khan has said certain foreign agents are misusing the issue of blasphemy for their ulterior motives and damaging public and private property in the country.

“It’s not the Danish people who owned Daewoo buses, the Muslim Commercial Bank and motorcycles that were set ablaze, but our own people who are bearing the brunt of unlawful activities of these anti-state elements,” he said, while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of a 1,500-line wireless local loop system exchange at the Basti Sher Khan village in Union Council Shah Maqsood here on Sunday.

Mr Omar said that the government had shown strong reaction to the issue of blasphemy and called back its envoy from Denmark snapping diplomatic relations.

He said that the government was ready to take the matter to international forums but certain foreign agents had mixed with the protesters and were destroying public as well as private property in the name of protest.

These elements, he urged, must be isolated and kicked out of the ranks because they had anti-Pakistan motives.

While linking the ongoing unrest in the country to the killing of three Chinese engineers, Mr Khan said that these elements were hell bent on disrupting the process of economic development in the country. He asked the people to identify such “foreign touts” who did not want to break the status quo of poverty and under-development.

About the demand for augmentation of the electric supply system, he said that maximum areas would have complete electrification and its augmentation by the end of next fiscal year under the Roshan Pakistan Programme of President Gen Musharraf while telecommunication facility would be available to all remote areas of Haripur by the end of the current fiscal year.

About the proposed Gravity Flow Water Supply Scheme on the river Dour for district Abbottabad, the minister of state made it clear that he had opposed the project at ECNEC’s meeting as the scheme would have negative impacts on the agriculture system of Haripur.

He said that he would continue to oppose the scheme unless an alternative irrigation scheme to fulfil the prospective shortfall of 7 cusec was not approved for Haripur.

District nazim Yousuf Ayub Khan also warned the provincial government and JICA Company to desist from implementing the project as it could create a law and order situation in Haripur.