ANP announces full support to ‘long march’ on Islamabad

PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party (ANP) has announced to fully support the opposition parties’ ‘Long March’ to Islamabad on March 26 and field joint candidates for the upcoming Senate elections.

The Pakhtun nationalist party in its central executive council meeting on Wednesday also opposed the presidential ordinance for an open ballot for the Senate polls on the ground that the government had adopted an unconstitutional and apolitical approach towards such an important legislation.

Briefing the media persons after the party’s executive council meeting, ANP central senior vice-president Ameer Haider Khan Hoti said that the party had decided to stage countrywide protests for the recovery of missing persons

Flanked by General Secretary of the ANP Mian Iftikhar Hussain and Information Secretary Zahid Khan and other ANP leaders, Ameer Haider Hoti said: “A senior leader of the ANP Asad Khan Achakzai had disappeared since long and we demand his early recovery,” he said, adding, the protests would be held for all missing persons across the country on February 22.

He said that there should be proper legislation for missing persons and if they were involved in any crimes they should be produced in the courts. Haider Hoti said the ANP wanted the supremacy of the parliament and the rule of law and Constitution. He maintained that every state institution must remain within its constitutional domain.