Joint Struggle by Democratic Parties Needed to End ‘Imposed Fake Terrorism’ and Economic Ruin: Khushal Khan Kakar

Quetta — Pashtunkhwa National Awami Party (PKNAP) chairman Khushal Khan Kakar has said a joint struggle by political and democratic parties is the need of the hour to free “Pashtunkhwa homeland” from what he called imposed fake terrorism, unrest, lawlessness and economic devastation.

Addressing a regional party conference in Samungli, he said PKNAP was ready to form a Pashtun National Alliance of democratic parties and to make every sacrifice from that platform. Despite political differences, he added, the party would support every democratic and patriotic struggle.

Central secretary Allah Noor Khan, provincial secretary Khushal Khan Kasi, deputy secretaries Nida Sangar, Syed Akbar Kakar, Professor Asad Tareen, Arifa Siddiq, Ajmal Khan and Noor Agha Durrani also spoke. Thousands of delegates attended, including a large number of women. An 11-member regional executive was elected under Abdullah Jan Achakzai and Malik Asif Khan Kasi.

Congratulating district and regional leaders on the conference, Kakar said the presence of elders, youth and women from every walk of life showed PKNAP had support across classes and ages. The Pashtun nation, he said, needed such an organised representative party to keep working for national goals.

He claimed people from Chaman to Bajaur were facing “fake terrorism,” severe unemployment and what he termed economic massacre. Illegal restrictions had been placed on Durand Line trade, agriculture was in decline and there were no factories. Despite mineral wealth worth billions of dollars, he said, a majority of poor people lacked even two meals a day. This was not fate, he argued, but the result of being denied national unity and authority and of political, economic and cultural subjugation — a situation that was no longer tolerable.

He said PKNAP had from day one kept contact with political, democratic and religious parties and other schools of thought to unite them in a Pashtun national front and run a continuous movement. In any such joint struggle, PKNAP was ready for every sacrifice, sought no credit or leadership, and would play a front-line role as workers.