An opposition lawmaker Tuesday claimed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly that some provincial ministers and several MPAs were giving millions of rupees as protection money to militants, a charge the government neither denied nor confirmed.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl’s Mufti Said Janan said the protection money or ‘bhatta’ amounting to Rs20 million was transferred to the militants from another unidentified country through the unofficial hundi channels. He did not identify any minister or member of the provincial assembly who was allegedly paying the protection money.
“If ministers and lawmakers are paying protection money, how it is possible for the government to provide security to the common people,” he argued while presenting an adjournment motion that sought detailed discussion on the law and order situation in the province. The motion was admitted.
Extortion from traders, doctors and other well-heeled personalities in the province has been rampant but this was the first time that a lawmaker on the floor of the assembly claimed that unidentified provincial ministers and lawmakers were paying extortion money to the militants. A number of people who refused to pay extortion money were killed or attacked in Peshawar city, but police have apparently failed to control the situation.
Two important ministers, the senior minister and law minister, replied to Mufti Said Janan’s criticism on the law and order but none denied his claim that ministers and lawmakers were paying protection money. The coalition government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad Pakistan (AJIP) is seen soft on Taliban.
“I see the writ of the [provincial] government limiting to the Governor’s House, Chief Minister’s House and areas up to Gora Qabristan [that include Civil Secretariat, Police Lines and military installations],” Mufti Janan said to suggest that the government’s writ was fast eroding. “We taunted Afghanistan that its government was limited to Kabul, but now it’s happening to us in this province,” he noted with concern.
Some figures the lawmaker presented revealed that the number of government employees killed during the PTI rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had shot up. The figures suggested that around 44 officials were killed in 2013 but the number went up precipitously to 138 in 2014. The MPA, who hails from Hangu district where the militants often undertake attacks, deplored that a foreign intelligence agency had included Peshawar in the top 10 most dangerous cities of the world. He reminded the House that flights could not take off or land at the Peshawar airport due to attacks on the planes, making it the third time to close the airport for night operations.
“This has deprived scores of families of means of livelihood and I wonder what financial loss it would have caused to the country,” he said.Interestingly, Law Minister Imtiaz Shahid while replying to Mufti Janan’s assertions termed the law and order situation ‘extremely satisfactory in our province.’ In his opinion, the whole country and not only KP was reeling under terrorism. “In KP, acts of terrorism have declined and today we have an extremely satisfactory situation in our province,” said Imtiaz Shahid, the former deputy speaker from Kohat who was recently made law minister.
Senior Minister Inayatullah Khan, who belongs to the JI, supported his colleague. “There was a period when we were wishing there would be a day without a bomb blast. Today we hardly hear of a blast once a month,” he said. “The government considered maintaining the law and order as its primary responsibility and it has been constantly working to improve it,” he added.
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