ISLAMABAD, July 25: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), led by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, has demanded of the government to allow the party to set up FM radio stations, particularly in those areas where other political or religious groups have already been running FM stations.

Talking to Dawn on Wednesday, PPP spokesman and former senator Farhatullah Khan Babar said the party was planning to formally submit an application to the NWFP governor seeking permission to set up FM radio station in Swat.

Mr Babar alleged that the present military regime had permitted an Al-Qaeda aide Maulana Fazlullah to operate an FM radio in Swat area of the NWFP and the radio was spreading confusion amongst the people and trying to brainwash them against the democratic forces. He said if elections were to be fair, all parties must be given a level-playing field and the PPP must also be allowed to operate its radio station to reach the masses with its pro-people message.

Mr Babar said Maulana Fazlullah was operating a radio station from Swat in a place called Fazagat. He said that Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra), the authority that dealt with radio licences, had stated that its ordinance did not extend to the Fata and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA) and matters pertaining to the electronic media in these areas were governed by the Governor’s Secretariat.

The PPP noted that law enforcement agencies and Maulana Fazlullah a couple of weeks ago had reached an agreement on the issue of running radio programmes.

In the agreement, he said, Maulana Fazlullah had promised that he would not indulge in any type of activity that was against the policies of the government with special reference to the polio vaccination and other health services of the authorities concerned.

He said these assurances nonetheless did not cover its objection that the democratic forces were at a disadvantage if one party could reach the people through its own radio station whereas the other could not.

Mr Babar reminded that Maulana Fazlullah was the son-in-law of Sufi Mohammad, a suspect in the kidnapping of foreign tourists in the Indian-held Kashmir in the early 1990s and had ties with Omar Shaikh, presently in custody on charges of murdering Wall Street Journal Bureau Chief Daniel Pearl.