PESHAWAR Feb-24: The return of peace to the volatile Swat valley is more important than anything else for the NWFP Minister for Environment Wajid Ali Khan, whose younger brother had also been shot dead a few months ago and he personally received life threats for the stand his nationalist party had adopted against militants in the province.
Receiving party workers and people form his constituency at his office in Peshawar Monday, Wajid looked more comfortable and hopeful about the latest development taking place in district Swat after the ANP-led government announced implementation of Nizam-e-Adl Regulation in the erstwhile Malakand Division and Kohistan district of Hazara Division.
“If anyone has still doubts about the peace agreement in Swat, then they should ask for the value of peace from Swatis, who had witnessed human and material losses during the one and half-year clashes between military and militants,” he replied when asked about the future of Swat in the presence of activists of defunct Tazeem Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM) and the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The minister said that there would be life, ideology, politics and development works when there was peace in a society, adding, that the Awami National Party was committed to its pledge of restoring peace to the province.
The ANP suffered the most for its stand against militancy and insurgency and only in Swat over 100 party local leaders and workers had been killed for the last six months, he said, and added that sacrifices for a true cause were not new to the ANP and his family.
Wajid Ali Khan’s younger brother, Farooq Khan, who was serving in the Police Department as an inspector was shot dead by unknown persons on a busy road in Mingora. The provincial minister did not attend his brother’s funeral for security reasons and the threats he received from Swat-based Taliban.
The firebrand cleric Maulana Fazlullah also summoned more than 40 politicians and MPAs, including Wajid Ali Khan, to his self-established Shariah courts for holding them responsible for the deaths and destruction in Swat. Wajid, who also has the Forest ministry, said those who were criticising the ANP for deviating from its basic principle as secular party for supporting Shariah courts had ignored another aspect the Pakhtun nationalist party, which sought safety of its people and peace of the soil. “We are not doing politics in the name of religion but are bound to honour mandate of the people who had voted us for restoring peace to the province through political means,” he said.
About the death of journalist Musa Khankhel and alleged kidnapping of a high-ranking officer along with body guards in Swat, the minister said some elements were out to vitiate the atmosphere in Swat where they fear that government’s writ and cooperation of the religious groups would definitely put at stake their nefarious designs.
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