[Dawn] The leaders of anti-Taliban Adezai Qaumi Lashkar have alleged that provincial government has stopped supporting their volunteers and left them at the mercy of orcs."Militants will get strengthen in the suburban areas of provincial metropolis as government has intentionally stopped supporting our volunteers," Dilawar Khan, the head of the lashkar, told a presser here on Thursday.
He said that elders of the area had formed the lashkar on the directives of government. But government didn't materialise its promises to support them, he alleged.
Flanked by several leaders of lashkar including Haji Abdur Razaq, Waqif Khan, Haji Inam Gul, Irshad Khan and Haji Ali Ahmed, he said that more than 100 volunteers of the lashkar had been killed since its formation in 2008. "These volunteers sacrificed their lives to defend their motherland and hundreds of their colleagues were maimed by cut-throats but they have not been paid proper compensation so far," he added.
Mr Khan alleged that provincial government left them at the mercy of cut-throats as it was not ready to materialise its promises of providing food, arms and ammunition to them. "We have to arrange weapons on our own," he said.
He said that their new generation was deprived of education owing to insecurity in the area. "During the past few months, we have foiled three suicide kabooms. The would-be bombers were killed before they could hit the target but none of the
government officials and ministers bothered to encourage our volunteers," he said.
The lashkar chief said that instead of appreciating their efforts the government tried to claim credit for the successful operations against terrorists.
He also criticised politicians for what he called lack of interest to contact the volunteers or visit their area at least for condolences when scores of their colleagues were killed in suicide attacks in the recent past.
The provincial government, he said, was not supporting the lashkar because he was district president of PML-Q and Waqif Khan, another commander of the peace body, was associated with PML-N. "We all belong to different political parties but we are fully united on a single point to fight militancy, protect the area and stop entry of beturbanned goons into Beautiful Downtown Peshawar at all costs," he aid.
Mr Khan claimed that an important Taliban capo Jangrez was killed during a clash with volunteers that helped them control terrorist acts in Peshawar.
He also threatened to quit PML-Q if party leaders didn't change their behaviour with workers. "The federal government had announced pride of performance for us but owing to our political affiliation provincial government created hurdles in it," he alleged.
He asked Senior Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour and Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain to stop opposing him on political basis otherwise entire responsibility would rest with them if anything happened to him.
The lashkar leader asked religious scholars to take a firm stand against cut-throats and declare them non-Mohammedans as they were slaughtering innocent people.