Co-Chairman of Pakistan People's Party Asif Ai Zardari has asked the party leadership to reach out to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province and taking all possible steps for their assistance in relief and rehabilitation.
A large number of tribal families have moved out of North Waziristan due to the military operation against Taliban militants, adding to the already bulging population of IDPs in the province. Official estimates put the figures of registered IDPs at over 400,000 with many more still pouring in. In a message to the party leadership at the centre and all provinces here on Monday, Asif Zardari said that IDPs were our heroes and heroines who were undergoing untold sufferings and miseries in the nation's drive against militants and they must not be left alone in their hour of tribulation.
Zardari's spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the party co-chairman directed the provincial President of PPP Khanzada Khan to draw up a workable plan in consultation with the party officials for the rehabilitation of IDPs in the province involving also party chapters in other provinces in providing material assistance in the gigantic task.
He said the PPP co-chairman asked to pay special attention for providing transport, shelter, food and health care besides cash relief to the streams of people pouring out of troubled tribal regions.
The spokesman said Asif Ali Zardari directed PPP parliamentarians to raise a strong voice in parliament for addressing the problems faced by the IDPs and for setting up of "victims' rehabilitation fund" for the relief and rehabilitation of the internally displaced persons. He also directed the party parliamentarians to brief the international community and the diplomats about the humanitarian crisis and the need for international assistance in the relief and rehabilitation of IDPs. The fight against militants is a global fight and the world community must also fulfil its responsibilities in providing generous assistance for the relief and rehabilitation of the displaced families, he said.
Zardari said besides being a huge humanitarian issue, the IDPs were also a national asset in the fight against militants. "We must do everything possible to make the displaced persons believe that the sacrifices made by them in leaving their hearth and homes and living in tented camps in scorching heat are being recognised and that they are not being abandoned," he said.
Abandoning the IDPs or mishandling the issue will give the opponents of the military operation to demand an end to the fight against militants, the former president warned. "The honour that the state and society will give and the extent to which we mitigate the sufferings of the internally displaced persons is critical to sustaining the support of the people in the fight against militants," spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar quoted the PPP co-chairman as saying. Zardari also asked the PPP KP president to keep him regularly posted with the plans drawn and the assistance rendered to the IDPs.
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