Female politician of Chitral descent awarded Senate ticket

ISLAMABAD, Feb 13: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday awarded Senate ticket to Samina Abid, the maternal granddaughter of Chitral’s ex-Mehtar Mohammad Nasirul Mulk. Samina Abid, who speaks fluent Khowar, is the younger sister of Mehtar Fatehul Mulk Ali Nasir’s mother and daughter of Nawab of Amb. Talking to ChitralToday, Ms Samina said she was proud of being the granddaughter of Chitralis, adding she would make all-out efforts to raise Chitral’s issues in the Senate. “I’ve lived in Chitral most of the time rather I was brought up there at my nanyal (bupduri) and I consider myself as a Chitrali,” a jubilant Samina, who is also president of PTI women wing of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said about her deep-rooted association with Chitral. She said Chitral would always be her top most priority followed by Malakand and Hazara. “The reason why I was selected is because I represent three different regions – Chitral, Malakand and Hazara,” she added. Ms Samina said the areas which she would represent were considered to be the most backward due to the lack of attention by the people at helm of affairs. “I will highlight socio-economic backwardness of the areas, especially issues related to health, child labour, women empowerment, early marriages of girls, etc,” she maintained. She said she would fight for the rights of have-nots and the downtrodden and introduce bills in Senate of Pakistan for legislation in this regard. “The issues faced by the people of Chitral, Hazra and Malakand are different from rest of the province and there is a need to pay special attention to resolve them,” she maintained. People belonging to different walks of life in Chitral lauded the award of the Senate ticket to Ms Samina against the quota reserved for women from Khyber Pakhtukhwa. They expressed the hope that being granddaughter of Chitralis, she would highlight the issues faced by the district vigorously.]]>