Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi addresses the Khyber Peace Jirga on Sunday. Photo: X
SHELTER:
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi on Sunday announced plans to convene a province-wide grand jirga as he prepares to launch a protest march against Islamabad over the “forced eviction” of residents from the Tirah Valley and a federal “U-turn” on the issue.
He also revealed that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has invited him to a meeting on provincial rights where he will present the case of the people of the province “with full force and determination”.
According to sources, Afridi would travel to Islamabad on Monday (today) to meet the Prime Minister to “raise the case for KP’s rights and secure our outstanding dues”.
Addressing a major peace jirga at the Jamrud Sports Complex in Khyber, the chief minister said he would soon begin consultations with stakeholders across the province, starting with visits to the merged districts, before fixing the date for a march to the federal capital.
The move comes amid a growing battle between the federal and provincial governments over who authorized the evacuation of Tirah after hundreds of families were forced to leave their homes amid fears of a planned military crackdown.
While authorities initially maintained that the evacuations were carried out with the consent of all stakeholders, including local elders, the provincial government and the military, the issue has become highly contentious after displaced families were left stranded in freezing, open-air conditions, with alleged mismanagement exacerbating their plight.
Earlier this week, the federal government insisted that the movement of people from Tirah was part of routine seasonal migration and denied that any military operation was planned in the valley.
However, Afridi rejected this narrative, calling the official position “a joke” and saying the Center had changed its position only after international media highlighted the “actual sufferings of the valley”.
At the jirga, the chief minister asked participants if they would join him in a protest march to Islamabad to register anger over what he called the “atrocities” committed against the people of Tirah, their “forced displacement” and the government’s reversal of the military operation.
He announced that a grand jirga would be convened soon. “We will assert at the grand jirga that only people are entitled to rule Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as it belongs to them and that no decisions made behind closed doors in Islamabad will be acceptable anymore.”
Amid loud sloganeering from the crowd, Afridi said that “no power on earth could shake his confidence, nor could his conscience be bought if he has the solid support and backing of his own people”.
He alleged that conspiracies were being hatched to either impose the governor’s rule in the province or have him disqualified through “concocted cases”, adding that there were also efforts to “eliminate him if he does not submit to the narrative of his political rivals”.
“But I have firm faith in God and I am not afraid of anyone as I am a tribal and will never budge on our stated policy on militancy and military operations,” he said.
Responding to allegations of misappropriation of Rs4 billion allocated to displaced Tirah families, the chief minister said he would not hesitate to sanction even Rs100 billion if necessary, claiming that the federal government had “reneged on its promises to give a paltry amount of Rs400,000” to victims of past military operations.
He promised “exemplary punishment” for anyone found guilty of irregularities in the use of emergency funds.
Afridi also accused the federal government of discriminating against Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, saying, “We are considered second-class citizens. But I will continue to raise my voice against this injustice as, as a soldier of Imran Khan, I know how to secure our rights”.
The chief minister warned that the federal government’s handling of Tirah would lead to “people losing confidence in the security establishment”.
“We have been clamoring for a long time against the presence of illegal militant groups in various parts of KP, especially Tirah, reminding the federal government that militant activities have increased. But no one took our allegations seriously while the situation gradually went out of everyone’s hands,” he said.
He further stated that the people of tribal areas had always sacrificed for the country and would “kill the negative propaganda against them”.
On the same occasion, Afridi announced the creation of a provincial relief fund for the poor and needy, and called on wealthy citizens to contribute so that the aid could be distributed during Ramazan.
He also condemned the terror attacks carried out in different parts of Balochistan on Saturday and expressed solidarity with the affected families and said that people of KP shared their grief and pain.
Earlier, Provincial Minister Meena Khan, MNA Iqbal Afridi and MPAs Abdul Ghani and Adnan Qadri also addressed the gathering and held the federal government responsible for the hardships faced by the displaced families in Tirah.
Notably absent were members of the Tirah tribal jirga, which had previously negotiated the evacuation of families with provincial and security officials.
Meanwhile, the tribal elders in a tribal jirga on Tirah issue have announced complete solidarity, sympathy and full support to all the affected families who have been temporarily displaced.
The jirga organized by Bara Political Alliance and the agenda of the national jirga was presented by former president of Bara Political Alliance, Haji Shireen Afridi.
The participants in the Jirga raised their voices in favor of peace. The Jirga leaders said that the problems of Tirah’s victims are not limited to any region or tribe but it is a collective national problem.
They said that any further delay in solving the problems of the displaced in Tirah is unacceptable.
