MUZAFFARABAD, Nov 20: Eleven new AJK ministers, appointed by Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat a week ago, were formally sworn in here on Saturday. President Sardar Mohammad Anwar Khan administered the oath at the President House.

The new ministers are: Chaudhry Tariq Farooq, Hafiz Hamid Raza, Mohammad Masood Khalid, Amir Ghaffar Lone, Mir Ali Akbar, Raja Mohammad Yasin Khan, Chaudhry Yasin Gulshan, Deevan Ali Chughtai, Raja Mohammad Naseer, Sardar Tahir Anwar and Ms Shireen Waheed.

The first three were ministers in the existing cabinet, but had resigned in February over some differences with the PM. Shah Ghulam Qadir had also resigned from the cabinet with them, but did not accept the offer to rejoin the council of ministers.

Mr Qadir had been leading the 11-member 'like minded group' of the ruling party dissidents, seven of whom were inducted as ministers and one as adviser in the cabinet expansion.

All of them had arrived at the President House together from Mr Qadir's temporary residence in the state capital.

ADVISER: Later, the PM administered oath at a well-attended ceremony in his office to Ms Shamim Akhtar, MLA, one of the two new advisers to the PM, appointed on Saturday. Ms Akhtar is the only woman in AJK's parliamentary history to have been directly elected as MLA from a Kashmiri refugees' constituency in Punjab.