‘Govt depts to replace logos carrying KPK with KP’

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Friday unanimously adopted a resolution demanding framing of laws for adopting children.

Moved by Nighat Yasmin Orakzai of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the resolution said the House recommended to the provincial government to frame laws about adopting children with ‘controversial’ parenthood.

She maintained that since there were no laws about adoption of children and a child could be adopted by submitting an application. She pointed out that there was no mechanism to make sure whether the child was going to receive education and was brought up properly.

There should also be computerised data of adopted children so that they did not fall into wrong hands, the resolution read. The mover said the adopted children faced difficulties in getting the national identity cards and educational documents, domicile certificates so laws should be framed to facilitate them.

She said that a bill if passed would help protect the future of adopted children as there would be checks in place to see how the child was brought up and educated to make him/her a useful citizen.

Supporting the resolution, Minister for Labour Shaukat Yousafzai said the government and opposition would join hands to make the necessary laws. Deputy Speaker Mahmood Jan, who presided over the session, ruled all government departments, including the Excise and Taxation and the police, to immediately replace the number plate of vehicles and logo on traffic police uniform inscribed with the abbreviation KP.

He said number plates of official vehicles should be replaced first. Responding to the complaint of Awami National Party (ANP)’s Shagufta Malik that almost all the governments departments were still using the abbreviation of KPK for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa despite the fact this Assembly had clarified that the actual abbreviation was KP and not KPK.

The speaker has also time and again ruled that KP be used as an abbreviation but bureaucracy was intentionally using the wrong abbreviation to deprive Pakhtuns of their identity, she alleged.

She warned of bringing a privilege motion if the matter was not taken seriously and the wording on number plates and official communication was not corrected. Shaukat Yousafzai also said that KP was the actual abbreviation and it should be followed by all the departments in documents and communication.

The members also debated the issue of payment to the affectees of militancy in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) particularly to the ones hailing from Waziristan. Raising the issue, ANP parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak said the tribal people were displaced during the militancy and military operations and their houses were demolished.

The government announced house compensation for the affectees though it was a meagre amount of Rs400,000 for fully damaged house but even then the affectees were not made payments, he added.