PESHAWAR, Feb 3: The Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party has condemned firing on Chinese engineers going to the Gomal Zam dam site to resume work on the project, and said the attack was made by ‘anti-Pukhtun secret agencies which want to make the project a failure’.

In a statement issued here on Friday, a PMAP spokesman said agents of the agencies had killed last a Chinese engineer working on the project.

He added that the attackers were agents of those forces which were involved in the killings of local people in Waziristan.

He said the same forces were turning the tribesmen into terrorists to persent a distrusted image of the Pukhtuns who had never been involved in terrorism.

He said patriotic Pukhtuns could not think of sabotaging projects aimed at their well-being and prosperity.

The spokesman said the project was initiated before 1947 but remained shelved for 60 years and none of the successive governments tried to complete it. “The delay has caused a loss for Pukhtuns living in southern districts of the NWFP,” he added.

He said completion of the dam would benefit farmers of Dera Ismail Khan and Tank areas, who were facing an acute shortage of water for irrigation.

The rulers from a particular province were opposed to construction of the Gomal Zam dam because they had been using water share of the NWFP in their own province, he alleged.

The spokesman called upon the government to tighten security arrangements for engineers, technicians and workers engaged in the dam work and expedite the work.