Militants want to force into power, says Zardari

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari Wednesday met members of the National Assembly and Senators from FATA and other stakeholders in an interactive dialogue on the situation in the tribal areas.The Governor NWFP Owais Ahmad Ghani, who is also agent of the President for the tribal areas, Minister of States and Frontier Region Najamuddin Khan and Advisor Interior Rehman Malik also attended the meeting.On the occasion President said there was no alternative but to fight militancy in the country.He said militants wanted to capture political power through use of force to impose their own political agenda in the country which the government would never allow.He said government was committed to do all that was required to strengthen the law enforcement agencies on the one hand and to embark on a massive socio-economic development programme in the tribal areas on the other.He said the need for socio-economic development as a necessary tool for fighting militancy was increasingly being recognised by the international community and said that the adoption of Lugar-Biden Bill in the United States Senate was a manifestation of this realisation.Earlier Owais Ghani gave an overview of the law and order situation in the tribal belt which was followed by an open discussion on the subject in which there was free and frank exchange of ideas on the situation in tribal areas among the stakeholders.The meeting was informed that the government had decided to fill all the vacant posts in the development projects in the tribal areas to boost developmental activity and for this purpose the ban previously imposed was being lifted.The Advisor Interior informed the meeting that 2500 levies were being recruited in the first phase to strengthen the existing law enforcement efforts. Over 100 platoons of the Frontier Constabulary would also be raised in due course, he further said.Emphasizing the need for more interaction the President said that he will meet more often with the representatives from FATA in the coming days.

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