Two top NWFP officials removed

A reshuffle in the top bureaucracy in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has set the stage for a showdown between the central government and the province, currently being ruled by an alliance of six hardline Islamist parties yesterday after the Pakistani government recalled the province's top bureaucrat and police chief, a day after the NWFP adopted bills that critics say are modelled on the policies of the notorious Taliban.

"The federal government has called back the chief secretary and inspector-general of police from North West Frontier Prov-ince," the official APP news agency quoted Daniyal Aziz, chairman of the National Reconstr-uction Bureau, as saying.

Pakistan's powerful Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) has called an emergency session of its leadership council on the ongoing tussle between the MMA-ruled NWFP and Islamabad. The row follows the en bloc resignations by mayors of all 24 districts of NWFP last week in protest over alleged victimisation by the MMA provincial government and the passage of a bill by the regional assembly to enforce Islamic Sharia law.

While NWFP governor Iftikhar Ali Shah has called a meeting with the mayors in provincial capital, Peshawar, today to consider their grievances, MMA General Secre-tary Maulana Fazlur Rehman said the leaders of all six religious parties of the alliance would meet in Lahore, capital of Punjab province, today. "We will discuss the situation arising from the centre's interference in provincial affairs and chalk out our line of action," he said.

Rehman said that the alliance would not negotiate with Islamabad under any pressure and warned that it would stand up to face any machinations aimed at undermining MMA rule in the province bordering Afghanistan. President General Pervez Musharraf launched the local government system during the three-year military rule that ended with the induction of a civilian government in November following national elections. Musharraf, who has often described the system as a revolutionary progressive step at the grassroots level, is to visit NWFP next week to take stock of the situation arising from the mayors‚ dispute with the MMA provincial government.

The centre-province row surfaced in the wake of the failure of the recent negotiations between the Jamali government and MMA to come to an understanding on the contentious Legal Frame-work Order (LFO).

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed yesterday urged the MMA not to support what he called the "designs" of the opposition Pakistan People's Party and Pakistan Muslim League-N to damage the democratic process.

"PPP and PML-N are using MMA as a tool to achieve their aims," the minister told reporters, apparently alluding to the expected opposition uproar at the June 7 budget session of the National Assembly. Rashid said the government was keeping the door of negotiations open and Jamali had empowered the ruling PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain to hold talks with the opposition to resolve the LFO controversy.

Observers say the government's categorical rejection of the MMA demand for Musharraf to quit the post of army chief leaves little room for a compromise between the government and the religious front.

The NWFP parliament, dominated by hardline Islamic lawmakers, on Monday passed a bill to implement Sharia, or Islamic law, in the conservative region bordering Afghanistan.

The provincial government also plans to pass a law to set up a body to promote religious observance which critics fear will be modelled on the notorious religious police of Afghanistan's former Taliban regime.

Some newspapers, reviewing the replacement of the province's top bureaucrat and police chief, said it could be a tactic by Musharraf to limit the effects of the radical reforms by putting trusted figures in key positions.

The move seems to be a "reaction to the NWFP government's decision to introduce Sharia law" in the province, NWFP Chief Minister Akram Durrani told reporters late on Tuesday.

The NWFP government yesterday announced a two-month remission in the sentences of all prisoners across the province, except those involved in serious crimes, and also decided to observe the June 2 passage of the bill as a holiday in the region every year, officials said.

Sharia Law 2003 also proposes the establishment of a department of vice and virtue, which critics have compared to the Afghan Taliban's notorious Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Discouragement of Vice.

The MMA, which shares power with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) of Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali in southwestern Baluchistan, sits in opposition in the federal parliament where it holds 18 per cent of the 342 seats.

A key MMA component, Jamiat Ulemae Islam (JUI), led by Islamic cleric Maulana Fazlur Rehman, was a one-time supporter of the now ousted Taliban.

JUI's Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, who is MMA parliamentary leader, condemned the government's removal of the two NWFP officials. "The government after pelting stones on us should not expect flowers in return," he said.

"What the federal government is doing in NWFP, its reaction now will be felt in the centre," he said, meaning that the move would have repercussions in parliament.

The MMA has joined the main opposition Pakistan People's Party and the PML-N of former premier Nawaz Sharif in demanding that Musharraf quit as army chief and submit to a standard presidential election.

The demands have brought to a standstill Pakistan's seven-month-old parliament – the first since Musharraf seized power in a military coup in October 1999.