ANP seeks safe, early repatriation of students from Bishkek

PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party has called for safe and early repatriation of the Pakistani students from Kyrgyzstan after mob attacks on foreign students and urged the government to resettle these students in medical and engineering colleges and universities of the country.

The demand was made at the ANP provincial cabinet meeting held at the Bacha Khan Markaz, Peshawar, with the party provincial president Mian Iftikhar Hussain in the chair.The cabinet also endorsed all the decisions taken at the meeting of the Central Executive Council (CEC) of the party and reviewed organizational matters in the province.

A press release issued from Bacha Khan Markaz said that the ANP provincial leadership showed its profound concern over the recent attacks on foreign students in Kyrgyzstan capital Bishkek and asked the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments to resettle the affected students in medical and engineering colleges of the country after their safe and early return.

The ANP leadership also asked the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor and chief minister to shun their differences as it would adversely affect the province that had been in financial crisis for the last several years. “Instead of indulging in confrontation and war of words, both the governor and chief minister of the province must utilize their energies for obtaining provincial rights and resources from the federal government,” the communique said, adding that the PTI-led government must adopt serious steps for getting its due shares and arrears in net hydel profit and federal and national resources.

The ANP provincial cabinet also rejected the plan for imposing taxes in Malakand division and other merged districts of the province where the local people and traders had been on the protest for the last one week.

The nationalist party also showed its concern over the fresh wave of militancy and attacks on police force in southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, urging the federal and provincial governments to fully implement the National Action Plan against terrorism. The ANP also lamented the prolonged and unscheduled electricity loadshedding in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, saying that the province was generating maximum hydro power but its people were the worst sufferers of power outage.

The ANP cabinet also constituted a reconciliation committee led by veteran politician Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour and comprising members ANP provincial general secretary Hussain Shah Yousufzai, Senator Hidayatullah, senior politician Baz Mohammad Khan and Mohammad Salim Khan to woo annoyed and disgruntled workers and leaders to the party.