Pakhtun nationalists suffer a lot in war on terror in Pakistan

Khalid Kheshgi

 

PESHAWAR: The Pakhtun nationalist Awami National Party has become the major victim of terrorism for its open war against militants in the North West Frontier Province since came into power in the province after 2008 general elections.

 

The last tragedy it suffered was the death of its MPA Alamzeb Khan, elected on PF-1 Peshawar, who succumbed to head injuries in hospital he had received in a remote-controlled bomb on November 11 in Momin Town Peshawar. Besides his brother, six other people sustained injuries in the bomb blast, which was reportedly planted in a hand-pushed cart at a narrow street from where the slain MPA was passing through in his motor-car.

 

According to the information provided by ANP central secretariat Baacha Khan Markaz Peshawar, the nationalist party had wailed over the death of more than 100 party workers and local leaders only in the insurgency-plagued Swat valley after the militants and security forces have been engaged in clashes for the last seven months.

 

The brutal killing of elder brother of ANP MPA Waqar Ahmed Khan alongwith his two young nephews and five servants in Shadherai, Swat was the first revenge of the local Taliban, who had threatened the ANP MPAs from Swat to resign or face the dire consequences. The targeted killing of younger brother of NWFP Minister Wajid Ali in Mingora, who was serving as inspector in Police department, was another blow the ANP had received for challenging the Taliban in the volatile Swat valley. The ANP lawmakers including two provincial ministers, five MPAs and an MNA from Swat had stopped visiting their constituencies after the Taliban scrapped the 14-point peace agreement with the ANP-led provincial government in July 2008. ANP central leader and former federal minister Afzal Khan Lala, who has preferred to die on his soil rather leaving it to mercy of the militants, had survived several life attempts in his hometown Droshkhela. Besides human casualties, the ANP leaders and parliamentarians had suffered material losses including the destruction of residential and commercial places. The Taliban also had blown up an abandoned bungalow of late Khan Abdul Wali Khan in Bahrain, Swat.

 

The deadly suicide attack on one of the ANP elections camp in Shalbandai, Buner during bye-elections for NA-28 on December 28 had killed at least 33 persons on the spot.

 

A suicide attack on the ANP central president Asfandyar Wali Khan at Wali Bagh Charsadda on October 2, 2008, killed four persons including a loyal bodyguard of the ANP leader Yar Zameen Khan and diehard activist Fazl Ghani Ghani at a time when the party workers and well-wishers had thronged the Hujra of Asfandyar on the second day of Eidul Azha. Similarly, the provincial president of the ANP and Peace Envoy to NWFP government Afrasiyab Khattak narrowly escaped when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the ANP elections rally on February 11, 2008 in Nahqai, Charsadda. At least 30 people were killed in the same incident.

 

NWFP Senior Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour, who is also parliamentary party leader of the ANP in NWFP Assembly, survived a suicide attack on his life when he was about to leave the Qayum Sport Complex on the concluding ceremony of three-day inter provincial games on November 11, 2008. Provincial minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain had also witnessed the explosion that killed at least four persons on the main gate of Sport Complex. Another ANP minister Syed Aqil Shah, who was also provincial information secretary of the party at that time, received slight injuries when a bomb, fitted in a motor-bike outside his hotel, went off prior to 2008 general elections.

 

It is worth to mention here that almost all the ANP leaders, ministers and MPAs are the hit-list of the militants who had also warned the nationalist party to resign from the power within five days or face dire consequences. Though the ANP leaders and ministers had restricted their movement but have yet to bow down before the militants as they still claim to continue their struggle against militants unless they lay down arms for peaceful settlement in Swat and elsewhere in the province.

 

 Ends