AWP calls for ‘country-wide protest’ on 23rd May to demand release of Baba Jan, 15 other youth

Islamabad: (PR) The Awami Workers Party (AWP) has expressed concern at incarceration of the Federal Committee member Baba Jan and his 15 comrades in jail and demanded the Gilgit-Baltistan Government to release them after withdrawing ‘false and politically-motivated cases’ against them.

The party through a resolution after its FC meeting held in Lahore on Sunday demanded of the GB government to make public the judicial inquiry report of the Hunza incident of August 11, 2011 in which a disaster-hit man and his son were shot dead by a police officer during a peaceful protest by the affected people of Attabad disaster seeking compensation and rehabilitation of the displaced people.

The AWP press release said that the inquiry report had reportedly absolved Baba Jan and others from the trumped-up charges framed against them under Anti-terrorism Act (ATA). The meeting also expressed harassment of nationalist and progressive political activists under the ATA and putting their names on Fourth Schedule.

The party decided to give a call for a country-wide and international protest on May 23 for the release of Baba Jan and 15 other youths.

The meeting through another resolution condemned lynching and brutal murder of Mashal Khan, a bright student of Abdul Walk Khan University by a frenzied mob. They expressed dissatisfaction at the investigation of the incident by JIT and demanded the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government to reconstitute it and arrest the real culprits involved in the gruesome act. The party also expresses concern at the rising religious extremism and misuse of Blasphey laws. The party demands the government to repeal the blasphemy laws and change curriculum as well as delink religion from state affairs, security and foreign policies.