PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur on Friday said the provincial government was aware of the challenges facing Kurram residents and was utilising all available resources to mitigate their hardships.

“Efforts are under way to resolve issues in Kurram as quickly as possible. We hope that peace and normalcy will return to the area soon,” Mr Gandapur said in a statement issued by the Chief Minister’s Secretariat.

Mr Gandapur said the government was making every possible effort to find a peaceful and mutually acceptable solution to the crisis, and urged all stakeholders and local elders to support the government’s peace initiatives for the betterment of the region.

“Ensuring the safety of people’s lives and property, as well as maintaining law and order are the provincial government’s top priority and responsibility,” he said.

Says 10 tons of medical supplies already delivered to the region

The chief minister said that keeping in view the problems faced by Kurram residents, especially those caused by road closures, the provincial government launched a helicopter service to airlift the people from Kurram.

He said that a total of 613 individuals had so far benefitted from the service of the government-owned MI-17 helicopter.

According to the statement, the government’s helicopter conducted six flights to Kurram on Thursday, transporting a total of 145 individuals. During the first flight, 29 passengers were transported from Peshawar to Parachinar, while in the second flight, 31 passengers were flown from Parachinar to Kohat.

The third flight carried 10 individuals and one body from Kohat to Parachinar, the fourth 31 passengers from Parachinar to Kohat and the fifth five passengers from Kohat to Parachinar. The final flight of the day transported 39 individuals, including eight children, from Parachinar to Peshawar.

The individuals included jirga members as well as ordinary citizens, including women, children, students, and patients, according to the statement.

It added that essential medicines were also being supplied to Kurram via the provincial government’s helicopter, with around 10 tons of medical supplies already delivered to the region.

Meanwhile, PTI MNA Faisal Amin Khan has claimed that the recent tensions in Kurram were caused by multiple tribal land issues, which were being misused by “miscreants on both sides to give it a sectarian angle.”

In a statement, Mr Faisal, who is the brother of Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur, rejected the comments of the ISPR director general about governance in KP as “unwarranted” and said that the provincial government had airlifted 12.8 tons of medicines to Kurram hospitals in its choppers, with hundreds of patients flown out of the restive tribal district.

He added that 2,000 metric tons of subsidised wheat was released by the provincial government for residents.

The MNA said that since Kurram was a border area and there was cross-border movement, things got complicated.

He said that KP had the highest budget surplus of Rs103 billion against the International Monetary Fund target of Rs45 billion.

Mr Faisal said that 75 per cent of the province’s budget targets had been achieved in the first half of the current year, while the province had Rs 150-200 billion in cash, the highest in history.

He also said that the provincial government had spent Rs30.3 billion on its flagship healthcare programme, Sehat Card scheme, while the province’s development releases also reached historic highs.

The PTI lawmaker said that the provincial government had achieved all that though the federal government illegally withheld KP’s money amounting to Rs1.5 trillion.

He added that not a single penny out of Rs8.6 billion for development of terrorist hit merged areas had been released this year.

“Our [provincial] government has continued to fund development projects in merged tribal districts from its own resources,” he said.

Mr Faisal said that KP was the only province that honoured law-enforcement and security personnel, who were martyred on its soil.

“We [KP] provided the Shaheed Package to all soldiers and officers of security forces, including employment for their children and free plots for Shuhada’s families,” he said.

The MNA wondered whether any other province, which was more resourceful than KP, was doing the same. He criticised the Punjab government over a “lack of performance”.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2024