Lawmaker from North Waziristan to work on confidence-building between people, state

PESHAWAR: The newly-elected lawmaker from North Waziristan, Mir Kalam Khan, has said he will work on the confidence-building measures between the people of his district and state institutions.

Talking to The News on Wednesday, the independent lawmaker elected from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly constituency, PK-112 North Waziristan said he would raise the issues being faced by the people of his district on the floor of the provincial assembly.

“I hope to get a positive response from the state institutions to bring normalcy to the area that had suffered for the last more than a decade,” he added.

Mir Kalam Khan claimed that around 20,000 to 30,000 families were still displaced and he would coordinate with the stakeholders to take steps for their return to their homes.

Born and raised in Dosali in North Waziristan, Mir Kalam Khan graduated from the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Peshawar, in 2011. He had worked with Intermedia Pakistan.

He said he was a worker of the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP), but contested election as an independent candidate as his party had decided not to field candidate in the election in the merged tribal districts. Mir Kalam Khan secured 12,061 votes while the runner-up Sadiqullah of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) got 7,982.

The MPA-elect maintained that the entire constituency had one landline phone in Bora tehsil where people have to wait for hours in queues to contact their relatives and friends in other parts of the country. The daily life in North Waziristan had attained some kind of stability, but the Khar Kamar firing incident proved detrimental, he added. He said that his constituency like other parts of the tribal districts was without cellular and internet facilities.

About his election campaign, he said his supporters faced problems due to the imposition of the Section 144. He claimed that the administration did not create any problems for the supporters of other candidates.

“The ruling party had distributed power pylons and transformers to garner support for their candidate but nobody took action while his supporters were harassed for wall chalking and campaign banners which was a routine activity for other candidates’ supporters,” he alleged.

He also shared his plans of raising voice for the imprisoned elected representatives from North Waziristan and South Waziristan districts. “The imprisonment of MNA Ali Wazir and MNA Mohsin Dawar is rubbing salt into the wounds of the people of these areas as they have no representation at the National Assembly,” he added.