JI demands commission to probe North Waziristan firing

PESHAWAR: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) leader Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan has said that holding peaceful protests and political gatherings are the basic rights of the people of the newly merged districts and they should not be deprived of this right.

In a statement on Monday, he said it was a matter of serious concern that the people of the merged districts have been neglected in the past and were still being denied their basic rights even though the erstwhile Fata had been merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The JI leader felt sorrow over the loss of lives and injuries to many in North Waziristan, arguing that other options could have been explored to disperse the protesters. Direct firing is not the way to deal with own people, he stressed.

He also condemned the ‘criminal’ negligence of the provincial and federal governments over the incident.

Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan said North Waziristan was a settled district now and the matter should have been dealt with by the provincial government.

“But it is condemnable that all the government functionaries including the prime minister, interior minister and chief minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were silent over the incident,” he maintained.

He said the government should come into action before it is too late and form a high-level commission to probe the matter so that such issues could be averted in future.