Rehabilitation of Mahsud, Wazir people demanded

WANA: Tribal elders urged for rehabilitation of the Mahsud and Wazir tribespeople in their native areas in South Waziristan Agency (SWA).

The demand was made during a jirga of elders of Mahsud and Wazir tribes held with civil and military officials here.

Inspector General Frontier Corps (IG FC) Major General Abid Latif, Dera Ismail Khan Commissioner Abdul Ghafoor, Commandant SWA Colonel Ijaz Ahmad, SWA Political Agent Sohail Khan and others were present in the jirga.

Tribal elders of Mahsud, Wazir, Barki, Dotani and Salmankhel tribes including Malik Masud Ahmad Masud, Malik Ajmal Wazir, Malik Azam Khan and others represented their tribes at the jirga.

Malik Masud Ahmad demanded complete rehabilitation of the tribespeople of SWA.

Malik Azam complained that no funds were allocated for development work in Toikhula area in the Annual Development Prorgramme (ADP) and demanded approval of uplift schemes for the area.

IG FC Major General Abid Latif said the tribespeople were patriotic and rendered matchless sacrifices for the country.

He said they realised the problems were being faced by the tribespeople and vowed to solve the same gradually.

The IG FC said that efforts were being made to provide maximum relief to tribespeople at security checkposts and to bring more improvement in search at these posts. He said practical steps would be taken to remove sense of deprivation among the tribespeople.

Sohail Khan said that all the offices of the health, education and other line departments would be shifted to SWA from Tank, which he said, would help minimise hardships of tribespeople to a great extent.