SWABI, July 30: The Awami National Party leaders on Monday demanded a probe into the Islamabad suicide bombing which left 15 people dead and more than 65 people injured at a restaurant near the Lal Masjid.

The demand was made at a rally organised by the ANP here on Monday.

Referring to the Lal Masjid issue, the leaders said the mosque was located near the offices of the Inter-Services Intelligence, and expressed surprise that weapons in massive quantities found their way into the mosque.

They also asked why members of several intelligence and other law-enforcement agencies failed to notice the stockpiling of weapons in the mosque. They said that there was a dire need for a comprehensive investigation into the Lal Masjid issue and the subsequent suicide bombings to unmask the culprits.

Referring to the Kalabagh issue, the ANP leaders said that they would not allow the construction of the controversial dam.

They recalled that when the ANP had held a huge public meeting in Jehangira against President Musharraf’s plan to build what they called the anti-Pukhtun project in the past, the government was forced to give up the idea.

Similarly, they said, their ongoing struggle would compel Gen Musharraf to say goodbye to politics and hand over power to elected representatives of the people.

“President Musharraf is no stronger than the British who had tried to colonise the area. When Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his followers rose up against the British, they gave independence to the subcontinent,” ANP’s provincial general secretary Mian Iftikhar Hussain claimed.

“We are still alive and have come on the roads to get rid of the present rulers.”

About a possible deal between Benazir Bhutto and President Musharraf, they said the ANP would only comment on the matter when the two sides made their positions clear on the issue.

They assailed the policies of the MMA government, saying the myth of the religious alliance now stood shattered.