TIMERGARA/UPPER DIR: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Senator Sirajul Haq said on Sunday that all political parties of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are demanding inclusion of western route in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor project and they would go to any extent to get the share of the province in the project.

Speaking at a press conference at Ahyaul Uloom Balambat here, he said that the centre was engaged in grabbing the rights of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. He said that the government should include Malakand and Chitral road in the CPEC as per recommendations of the Senate committee on western route of the project.

Lower Dir JI leaders Jehan Badshah and district nazim Mohammad Rasool Khan were also present on the occasion.

Senator Haq said that the federal government was making the CPEC`s western route controversial like the Kalabagh dam. He said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had promised construction of the western route during an all-party conference at Islamabad. `But now he is least interested in the western route and his policy is ambiguous,` he said, adding that his party would soon arrange an all-party conference on the issue in Peshawar.

He said that the western route was the shortest to reach the central Asian states and safer than the Gilgit-Gawadar route.

He demanded of the federal government to end reservations of the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan regarding CPEC and start work on its western route.

Earlier, Senator Haq visited dif ferent units of category `C` hospital in his native Samar Bagh and appreciated its management for making functional closed units of the facility. He was informed that posts of ENT, eye, skin, medical and children specialists and gynecologist had been vacant and he should plead the case of filling these posts with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. The JI chief said that his party wanted accountability of all corrupt politicians whether they were in the government or in opposition.

In Upper Dir, JI provincial chief Mushtaq Ahmad Khan said that all those involved in Panama Leaks scam should be brought to justice and sent behind the bars.

He was speaking as chief guest at the oath-taking ceremony of newly-elected district chief of the party, Upper Dir, here at the district assembly hall on Sunday.

MNA Sahibzada Tariqullah, senior minister Inayatullah Khan and other JI leaders also attended the ceremony.

Mr Mushtaq said that the federal government should ensure the payment of net hydel profit to the KP as it was its constitutional right. `The federal government has kept KP deprived of progress for the last 30 to 40 years,` he said.