ISLAMABAD, April 24: Chairperson Pakistan Peoples Party and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto called upon the regime to wake up to its responsibility and restore law and order in the country.

“The regime has failed in its responsibility to contain militants and extremists,” she said in a statement on Tuesday. She pointed out that armed men of a private militia, Lashkar-i- Islami (LI), set on fire five security check posts in Bara, in the Khyber Agency, on Sunday and plundered several shops and exchanged fire with security personnel.

Earlier, the head of the militia, Mangal Bagh Afridi, had warned the security forces, in an announcement on FM radio, that his troops would attack if the LI centres were not vacated by early morning on Sunday.

As the deadline ended, the Lashkar rampaged and set ablaze five check posts, plundered several shops and damaged government property, before moving into a settled area near Bara and destroying music and video shops.

She also referred to the announcement by the Malakdin Khel tribe that it would not cooperate with the government until it reconstructed a demolished market and compensated the tribesmen.

Ms Bhutto said it appeared that the regime had abandoned its responsibility and yielded before the fanatics and extremists not only in the tribal areas of the country but also in the settled areas and even in the federal capital, Islamabad.

She said the emergence of Al Badar and Al Shams groups on the political horizon played havoc in 1971, leading to the break-up of the country. Groups like Lashkar-i-Islami (LI), Lashkar-i- Tayyaba, Jaish Mohammad and other private armies were now playing havoc with the country, she said.

“The PPP is alarmed that now even in Islamabad the prayer leader of Lal Masjid calls upon madrassas to provide militants for paralysing the government,” she said.

Bhutto warned that if the fire ignited by religious militancy was not extinguished it would inflame the whole country. It appears that the extremists and militants have regrouped and grown in strength following the rigging of the general elections in 2002, she said.

“If elections are rigged again to keep the PPP and its allies out, the forces that enabled the Taliban to regroup in the tribal areas and allowed extremist groups to spread as far as Islamabad will be strengthened to the detriment of Quaid-i-Azam’s vision of Pakistan as a federal, democratic and moderate state and threaten the way of life of our people and the destiny of our nation.”