KP Assembly: MPAs call for across the board de weaponisation in Kurram

PESHAWAR: Elected representatives from Kurram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Tuesday demanded the government to launch a de weaponization drive in the lower and upper Kurram district.

Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf MPA Abdul Hadi, elected from Upper Kurram, and Riaz Shaheen, elected on Jamiat Ulema Islam Fazl ticket from lower and central Kurram, however, appreciated the provincial government, political parties and others for ceasefire between the rival groups.

The PTI MPA said that the provincial government had dispatched medicines and other items to the affected areas in Upper Kurram at a time when the injured people had almost recovered from their wounds. He said that some of the local people in Lower and Central Kurram had provided shelter to the armed men who were allegedly involved in the firing over passenger vans on November 21. “There was no one to help and shift the injured people to the nearby hospitals while the dead were also lying for hours in the area,” he added.

However, JUIF MPA Riaz Shaheen said that the security forces and provincial government were responsible for maintaining law and order and providing protection to the local people but in his constituency in Lower Kurram armed people from Upper Kurram raided the houses of innocent people and set on fire their houses and shops on November 22. “There were some foreign elements involved in the armed raids as the local people claimed that they were holding flags of a particular group and sect,” he said and demanded operation in the entire Kurram district including Upper Kurram against those who were involved in the bloody clashes.

The treasury members also continued their debates over what they called “state terrorism” on the part of law enforcement agencies while firing on peaceful protestors of Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf at D Chowk on November 26.

Abdul Salam Afridi and Ubaid Rehman, PTI MPAs from Mardan, demanded judicial inquiry into the killing, injuring and missing of dozens of PTI workers at the hands of the Islamabad and Punjab police.

The session, chaired by Deputy Speaker Surriyya Bibi, was adjourned till December 16.

Abdul Salam Afridi and Ubaid Rehman, PTI MPAs from Mardan, demanded judicial inquiry into the killing, injuring and missing of dozens of PTI workers at the hands of the Islamabad and Punjab police. The session, chaired by Deputy Speaker Surriyya Bibi, was adjourned till December 16.