PESHAWAR, April 1: NWFP Chief Minister Muhammad Akram Khan Durrani on Friday rejected charges of violating the constitution by supporting the Saturday strike. The chief minister, in his rejoinder to charges made by the governor, said that he had responded to letters by the governor in the same manner in which they were communicated to him.

“We know our powers and the governor has his own jurisdiction. There is no need for anybody to take charge of the law and order in the province.”

“It is better if a person remains within the confines of his own powers. The way the governor has sent us the letters, they have been responded to in the same manner”, was chief minister’s reply to a question by a reporter who asked him about a story in Dawn.

Dawn reported in its April 1 issue about two letters Governor Khalil had sent to the chief minister, reprimanding him for breaking promise to disallow MMA’s rally on the main Grand Trunk Road and violating Article 149 of the Constitution. Governor Khalil, however, told reporters that the NWFP was part of the federation of Pakistan and the provincial government by supporting and endorsing the Saturday strike by MMA was violating the constitution.

“There is no concept of a state within a state. The provincial government by involving itself in the strike is violating the constitution. Government’s do not observe strikes”, he said while talking to journalists at a reception here on Friday.

Governor Khalil was specifically asked to comment on the chief minister’s statement made earlier in the day at the Iranian Cultural Centre.

Talking to reporters after speaking at a programme held to commemorate the anniversary of great Pushto poet, Rehman Baba, Chief Minister Durrani said that law and order in the province was exemplary and there was no need for anybody to take over the charge of law and order.

He said that those who had taken the law into their own hands during the strike called by PONM had been arrested and dealt with accordingly.

The chief minister said that the MMA leadership had directed its workers to get hold of miscreants who wanted to take the law in their own hands.