‘More efforts needed to stamp out militancy’

MARDAN: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) provincial president Senator Khanzada Khan has condemned the recent attack on the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) airbase at Badaber and called for more efforts to stamp out militancy.
The senator said his nephew was a colonel in the Pak Army and embraced martyrdom while fighting militants.
“I can feel the agony and pain of those who lost dear ones in the airbase attack,” he said as he offered sympathies to the families of martyred jawans and civilians.
“The sacrifices of security forces and civilians will be remembered”, he added, making a call for Pakistan and Afghanistan to support each other to eliminate militancy.
Khanzada Khan said when Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani visited Pakistan, he along with other party leaders met him and found him
to be a sincere leader. “It is time for both countries to build confidence and start a joint struggle to finish militancy,” he stressed.
Elated at the recent win of his party in the recent by-election in Dir, he said those who would say that the PPP had lost popularity had been proved wrong as the by-election in PK-93 in Upper-Dir showed that the PPP workers were alive and the party still enjoyed popularity.
Senator Khanzada said that three provincial ministers from the Jamaat-i-Islami, district and tehsil nazim used government machinery in the by-election and carried out development works but despite that the PPP won the
by-election. “I gave the credit of this success to the party workers,” he added.
Khanzada said his party won two by-elections — one in Chitral and other in Upper Dir, after he started heading the party in the province.