MARDAN: Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chairman Mehmood Khan Achakzai on Sunday said Pakistan could become an Asian tiger within a few years if the influential non-political quarters stopped interference in the country’s political affairs.

He stated this while speaking at meet-the-press programme of the Mardan Press Club on Sunday. A large number of party workers were also present.

Mr Achakzai said that political parties and leaders had the right to run the country because they contested elections and then came to parliament through vote of people.

He said that Pakistan was their [Pakhtuns’] country and no one had given it to them in charity, adding Pakhtun nation had been residing in the region for thousands of years.

The PkMAP chairman said that “Pakhtuns’ land was full of different natural resources and minerals, claiming that all those blessings and good things that were narrated in Sura-i-Rehman of the Holy Quran, were present on the Pakhtuns’ soil”.

He said that the “discriminatory and unjust” policies of the successive rulers had pushed Pakhtuns to poverty.

Mr Achakzai reminded that Pakhtuns were living in this region even before the existence of Pakistan and India as well as before the birth of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Gandi.

“We are citizens of Pakistan and having equal rights like other countrymen. Pakistan cannot survive if Pakhtuns, Baloch and other minorities of the country are not given their due rights,” he added.

He said that their forefathers had not gotten freedom from English rulers just to build roads, hospitals, modern buildings, railway tracks, rather they got freedom to rule the country through the real representatives of people. “Here Pakhtuns, Punjabis, Sindhis, Balochis and people of other nations are equal citizens.”

He said it was only the imposition of Constitution, which could protect Pakistan from breaking. He said all the people of the country had the right to get education in their own mother language as per the Constitution. He claimed that science had also now proved that a child could learn better in his mother language as compared to other languages.

To a query about the last general elections, he alleged that those polls were rigged, and those coming to the parliament were not voted by people. He claimed that PTI founder Imran Khan was popular leader of the country.

“We are ready for talks with the establishment in order to ’give it a dignified way to exit from politics,” he maintained.

When asked about award of punishments to the perpetrators to May 9 incidents, he said punishments should be awarded after an impartial inquiry. He also called for inquiries into the incidents of fall of East Pakistan in 1971 and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2024