MARDAN, Feb 23: National Assembly member Dr Attaur Rehman has said that the Mutahidda Majlis-i-Amal government is making sincere efforts to develop backward areas in the NWFP end to bring them at par with other areas of the province.

Dr Attaur Rehman was speaking at a function here in connection with the liberation earlier of seven local 'slave tenants' at Rustam village in Mardan. A well-off person of the area, Sadat Khan, got the slave tenants - Izzat Shah, Mian Hamid Bachaa, Saqib Mohammed, Chiragh Ali, Ali Bahadur, Arsala Khan and Waris Khan - freed after paying Rs116,400 to their masters.

Earlier Sadat Khan also freed other enslaved tenants on the efforts of Dr Atta at Surakh Dheri, Mardan. Dr Atta said that work over 67 schemes had been started only in NA-11 and added that developmental works would be equally carried out in all Union Councils of the constituency. He said that for the last 56 years no welfare and developmental works were carried out for the common man.