SIKANDRABAD: Esakhel tehsil resident Girdawar Muhammad Hashim Khan, who is in charge of relief goods has been accused of spreading sectarianism and is ignoring the Shia population of flood victims

Esakhel tehsil resident Girdawar Muhammad Hashim Khan, who is in charge of relief goods has been accused of spreading sectarianism and is ignoring the Shia population of flood victims.

Local residents from Ranjhe Wala including Ghulam Shabbir, Amir Mukhtar, Riaz, Malik Saadat and others gave a written statement to this effect on Monday.

They said that Girdawar belonged to a diehard Sunni sect and hated the Shia community.

“He has continuously overlooked the Shia community in relief operations and has not even distributed goods to two entire villages because he knew they had a majority Shia population,” Mukhtar said.

They said most of the people in Ranjhey Wala belonged to the Shia community and that the official had removed the names of the Shia community from all distribution lists for the flood affected people. “The Ranjhey Wala area has not been provided a single bottle of water,” said Malik Saadat. Locals in the area said they suffered severely during the floods and added that many have lost their houses and livestock.

Residents in Sikandrabad said that Hashim Khan was fanning the flames of sectarianism in the area and was using abusive language against the Shia community in a local mosque. The people appealed to the provincial finance minister, Sargodha commissioner and Mianwali district coordination officer (DCO) to register case against the official.

LISBON: The recent wave of attacks in Pakistan are a reaction to the success of the army’s anti-terror operations, foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Monday during a visit to Portugal.

“It is a reaction to the successful operations we’ve had against the militants in Pakistan,” Qureshi said following a meeting in Lisbon with his Portuguese counterpart Luis Amado.

On Monday, at least 19 people were killed in a suicide attack against a police station in Pakistan, where the Taliban allies of Al-Qaeda have stepped up their campaign, which has claimed more than 3,700 lives in three years.

“They are retaliating and they are attacking innocent citizens to create panic and to break the resolve that exists in the country,” Pakistan’s top diplomat said.

Qureshi is on a tour of European capitals to call attention to the plight of victims of recent devastating floods in Pakistan that submerged an area the size of England and left eight million people dependent on aid for survival.

He said he wanted to thank European leaders for the aid provided so far and to discuss the “measures that need to be taken for early recovery and the reconstruction phase”.

“And we also want to ensure that the money being contributed is utilised in the most efficient and transparent manner,” he added.

After Portugal, Qureshi will visit Spain and Poland before meeting in Brussels with the European Union’s foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton.