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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Issue of Swat checkposts echoes in KP Assembly

By Nisar Mahmood
February 22, 2018

PESHAWAR: The issue of security checkposts in Swat echoed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Wednesday as members from both treasury and opposition expressed concern over the suffering of the public at these roadside checkpoints.

Dr Amjad Ali, Advisor to the chief minister on Housing, on a point of order raised the issue and said the speaker should give a ruling over the problem as it might cause an uncertain situation.

He said that though the security forces had rendered sacrifices for restoration of peace and eradicating militancy and recently Army jawans got martyred in a suicide attack in Kabal tehsil, the general public was passing through great hardships while standing in queues at the checkposts. He said the speaker should give a ruling over the issue so that the public could get relief.

Taking part in the debate, Awami National Party (ANP) parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak said people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were subjected to insult at the checkposts, women were being checked and even patients and minor kids die due to delay in reaching hospitals while waiting in long queues at the checkpoints.

The lawmaker from Buner said the recent protests in Swat against the checkposts was neither organized by any particular party nor was it a political move. He termed it expression of anger over their insult and suffering at the checkposts, and said it was unfortunate that the government lodged first information report (FIR) at the police stations against some young men.

“Not only cases were registered but terrorism sections were included in the FIR, which is extremely cruel,” he regretted. He said that depriving people of peaceful protest was injustice and might create hatred against the state.

Asking the federal and provincial governments not to compel people to stage an uprising, he said the police cases should be withdrawn. The ANP lawmaker said Pakhtuns were not only compelled to take refuge in other provinces but were being killed and dubbed as terrorists. “They could no more remain silent over their exploitation,” he said.

Aneesa Zeb Tahirkheli of the Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) said that innocent Naqeebullah Mahsud was killed in a fake police encounter in Karachi and a student from Bajaur was also found dead in Karachi. She questioned as to why Pakhtuns were being massacred.

Fazle Elahi, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) lawmaker from Peshawar, maintained that 400 out of the 444 people killed in extra-judicial killings in Karachi were Pakhtuns.

Chitral’s Salim Khan of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said that snap checking was an issue in the whole of Malakand division and not of Swat alone. “Long queues of vehicles can be seen on checkpoints and people have to wait for hours. These checkposts should be removed as people passing through the main roads are not terrorists,” he added.

The debate led to trading of harsh words between the treasury and PPP members when PTI’s Minister Shah Farman said that the Pakhtuns in Karachi were being killed on ethnic grounds. Without naming Asif Ali Zardari, he said who were the ones defending and protecting police officer Rao Anwar by terming him a ‘brave child’.

He said enemies within are damaging the ideological frontiers of the country, adding that Pakhtuns had no differences with Sindh and its people but those involved in the murders of Naqeebullah Mehsud and other Pakhtuns would be held accountable.

In their reply, PPP’s Fakhre Azam Wazir and Salim Khan came down hard on PTI, saying that its government had failed to bring to justice the killers of Saima Rani of Kohat and those accused in the Dera Ismail Khan incident where a girl was paraded naked in the streets. They wondered on what moral grounds the PTI was criticising the Sindh government. The debate led to exchange of harsh words and shouting of slogans like “Zardari Chor” by the PTI lawmakers who alleged the former President was a thief and “three divorces and Peerni Mubarak” by the PPP members who were referring to Imran Khan’s previous divorces and his third marriage to his spiritual healer.

Amid rumpus, Deputy Speaker Dr Mehr Taj Roghani, who presided over the session, adjourned the session till February 23.