ISLAMABAD, Sept 1: A major government-allied party told the Senate on Monday nobody’s honour and life were safe in the main trouble spots in the North-West Frontier Province and the adjoining tribal areas as it called for convening an all-parties conference to formulate policy to counter militancy.

At the start of a debate on the situation of militancy in the NWFP and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) parliamentary group leader Gul Nasib also called for a foreign policy shift with parliamentary consensus to mend fences with neighbours and get out of what he called America’s war designed to control Central Asia’s natural resources and trade routes and Middle East’s oil.

Adjournment motions for the debate were moved by senators from the JUI on the treasury benches and from the Jamaat-i-Islami on the opposition benches.

Maulana Nasib cited several strife-torn areas such as South Waziristan, North Waristan, Kurram, Khyber, Bajaur and Mohmand agencies and the NWFP districts of Swat and Hangu and said people’s honour and life were not safe there.

“Anybody can be picked up on the way,…there is no government obstruction to whatever is done to anybody,” he said while particularly referring to Bara tehsil of the Khyber agency and the nearby Mohmand agency.

Even in Hangu, which authorities say is calm for some time, “nobody’s life and property appears to be safe”, said the Maulana, who hails from Chakdarra town near Swat valley, and added: “Similarly no writ of the government is visible in Swat.”

He said the situation in the troubled areas had forced thousands of people to migrate from their homes, and complained that mostly innocent civilians were being killed, about 300 in Bajaur alone, in military operations against militants, but described as “miscreants” in television broadcasts of government-supplied information.

Maulana Nasib said the government should move on a “war-footing” to mend fences with neighbours, including India, Iran and the Soviet Union, “take the whole region into confidence” and even approach the United Nations “so that America leaves the region”.

While calling for holding an all-parties conference on the situation in Fata and the NWFP, he said it was beyond the capacity of a single political party to confront the present situation facing the country. “The whole nation should be taken into confidence and foreign policy formulated through parliament,” said the Maulana, whose was the lone speech in the debate before the house was hurriedly adjourned until 11am on Tuesday after news came that the Ramazan moon had been sighted to mark the start of the fasting month.

Earlier, the house nominated, with consensus, three mediation committees for “consideration and resolution” of three private bills passed by the upper house but not passed by the National Assembly within the required period of 90 days.

Veteran parliamentarian Chaudhry Mohmmad Anwar Bhinder of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Q had authored all the three bills, one of them providing for a new set of restrictions on dowry and marriage gifts and the other two seeking some procedural amendments in the Code of Civil Procedure and the Limitation Act of 1908.