President, COAS pat Mohammad Afzal Khan Lala on the back
[29.Jan.2009 - 18:40]PESHAWAR, Thursday, January 29, 2009 The News :
The government formally acknowledged the courage and sacrifices of the 82-year-old Pakhtun nationalist leader and former federal minister Mohammad Afzal Khan when President Asif Ali Zardari made a phone call to him to praise him for standing up to the Taliban militants and the Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani met him during his flying visit to Swat.
Though belated, the government move was expected to raise the morale of those opposed to the Maulana Fazlullah-led militants in Swat. Afzal Khan, who is affiliated to the ruling ANP, has been seeking the government’s support and arming of village militias to take on the Taliban but his pleas until now have remained unanswered. General Kayani met Afzal Khan at the Frontier Constabulary camp in Kanju near Mingora. Afzal Khan’s family members in his village, Bara Drushkhela, in Matta area, said a military helicopter flew him to Kanju around 11 am and brought him back in the afternoon. They said Afzal Khan, accompanied by his close relative Colonel (Retd) Ghaffar, met the chief of army staff and discussed the situation in Swat. They expressed ignorance about the decisions made at the meeting.
Afzal Khan’s family members disclosed that this was President Zardari’s second phone call to him. They said the President Zardari called him a week ago also and paid tributes to him for resisting the militants despite the obvious risks to his life.
Some troops have been deployed at Afzal Khan’s village to protect him from the Taliban, who have attacked his house a number of times. Male members of Afzal Khan’s extended family and supporters also guard the village and his home. Afzal Khan and his nephew Abdul Jabbar Khan, who is tehsil Nazim for Matta, were earlier injured when his vehicle was ambushed by Taliban fighters. His two bodyguards were killed in that attack. The militants have also killed two of his nephews and torched his market.
Despite appeals by his party colleagues and well-wishers, Afzal Khan has refused to move out of Swat. Unlike most other politicians and notables of Swat, he opted to stay and resist the militants. In an interview with The News sometime back, he listed two reasons for not leaving his native Swat. One, he wanted to stay with his people and share their suffering rather than abandoning them in this hour of trial. Second, he said he would be unable to do anything meaningful for Swat and its people if he shifted to Peshawar or any other place.
Afzal Khan has served as a provincial minister in the NAP-JUI coalition government in the NWFP in the 1970s. He was a federal minister in a caretaker government. He was elected MPA and also MNA in past elections from Swat.
Asim Yasin adds from Islamabad: President Asif Ali Zardari assured the veteran politician of the government’s support to him and his family against the militants, saying the militants would not be allowed to impose their ideology and political agenda on the people through the barrel of gun. The president said the government would never allow the militants to set up parallel judiciary and threaten the local people to either appear before them or face death.- Rahimullah Yusufzai
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