TIMERGARA: Awami National Party central secretary general Mian Iftikhar Hussain on Monday said his party opposed demand for the prime minister`s resignation because the premier was only accused in the Panama Leaks case and the charge was yet to be proved.

He was talking to reporters at Timergara Press Club here on Monday.

`Only democracy will suffer if demands for resignation of the PM only on the basis of accusations do not cease,` insisted the ANP leader. He added that all the stakeholders should wait till the JIT completed its investigations.

Iftikhar Hussain said the ANP stood by the Supreme Court judgment in the Panama scandal case.

To a question, he said after media confessions the former TTP spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan was no more an accused but was a criminal and the government should treat him as criminal instead of `projecting` him.

`We would support an apology of the terrorists only if they put down arms,` he said.

The ANP leader said so far no evi-dence was found against Mashal Khan committing the blasphemy.

Islam is religion of peace the edifice of which stands on justice, he said and added that there was a specific law to deal with the sensitive issue but the people believed in mob justice which was against the spirit of Islam.

Expressing reservations over the ongoing census, Iftikhar Hussain demanded of the government to immediately establish the KP census headquarters in Peshawar like the other provinces.

`The centre is trying to manipulate the census data as the census forms are being filled with a pencil while women are not included in the staff which is affecting the exercise in Pakhtun society,` he said.

The ANP leader demanded of the government to give constitutional status to Fata`s proposed merger with KP as he said the issue could not be addressed by mere announcements. He said once the merger of Fata into KP was complete his party would demand merger of all Pakhtun territories into one unit. Correspondent