GILGIT, May 19: The president of People's Party Parliamentarians, Northern Areas, Syed Jafar Shah, announced on Tuesday that the PPP had decided to part ways with the 14-party Gilgit-Baltistan National Alliance.

Mr Shah, who is a member of the Northern Areas Legislative Council, told newsmen that former GBNA chairman Anayatullah Shumali had deviated from its agreed stand regarding the status of the Northern Areas in the Kashmir Integration Conference held here recently.

The conference was told by Mr Shumali that Gilgit-Baltistan were part of Kashmir, which, Mr Shah, said was not the collective stand of the alliance. Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the Muslim Conference's Sardar Atique and Kashmir Liberation Front Chairman Amanullah Khan also spoke at the conference.

Mr Shah said the alliance agreed to struggle for right to self-rule in the region till a settlement of the Kashmir issue. He said the region being a part of Kashmir was in the alliance's manifesto.

He said Mr Shumali had wrongly interpreted the alliance's manifesto and misused its platform. He said though Mr Shumali had resigned as chairman of the GBNA, he never shared his ideas regarding the status of Gilgit-Baltistan with the parties of the alliance. He said his party would not participate in the alliance's meetings.

HUNGER STRIKE: Over 300 students belonging to the Shia community continued their hunger-strike here on Wednesday to press for their demands. They had set up a hunger-strike camp here on Monday demanding amendments in the existing syllabus.