ANP demands blanket action against terrorists

CHARSADDA: Awami National Party (ANP) President Aimal Wali Khan on Monday called for blanket action against terrorists by implementing the National Action Plan in letter and spirit.

“ Action should also be taken against the facilitators of the terrorists,” he said while speaking at a gathering arranged to pay tribute to the victims of the Babara tragedy. The ANP chief said the nation knew well who had facilitated the return of the militants and their families to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He claimed that billions of dollars had been received from the US to launch a military operation. “In the recent past, the Pakhtun land was ravaged during the military actions,” Aimal said while voicing opposition to the operation.

He said though the leaders and workers of the ANP believed in non-violence, they would not allow the use of their soil for staging acts of terrorism. The ANP leader said the mandate of the Pakhtun nationalist party was stolen in the last general election despite that it was the true representative of the Pakhtuns.

Without naming the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder, Imran Khan, he said the grand opposition alliance was worried about the imprisonment of prisoner 804 instead of focusing on efforts to resolve the problems facing the common people.

Aimal advised all the political forces should join hands to work for strengthening democracy and upholding the rule of law. Setting a deadline, he said the federal government should resolve the issue of the electricity loadshedding and review agreements with independent power producers within one month, or else the ANP would stage a sit-in in Islamabad.

Recalling the Babara tragedy, the ANP chief said hundreds of members of the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement were killed on August 12, 1948, when force was used brutally against them. He said this was done to the followers of Bacha Khan who always preached the philosophy of non-violence.

He said over 650 members of the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement were killed at Babara in Charsadda on August 12, 1948. He paid rich tribute to the victims. ANP provincial President Mian Iftikhar Hussain and other leaders of the Pakhtun nationalist party also addressed the event.