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NWFP government acknowledges damage to billboards
The NWFP government on Saturday acknowledges Friday’s incident in which the skins of billboards carrying pictures of women were removed allegedly by the Shabab-e-Milli (SM), the youth wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI).

NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told Daily Times the government condemned whoever did this. “What will the administration do if people take the law into their own hands at their own free will?” he asked.
Most likely nothing.
The minister said that if billboards were not considered offensive in remaining three provinces of the country, how they could be considered offensive in NWFP. “It is cheap popularity tactic and we would take notice of it. Either government agencies or some other people are involved in it,” he said.

Mian Iftikhar said that one JI leader owned an advertising agency in Lahore, however their local leadership was destroying billboards in NWFP, which he said was a double standard.

Shabab-e-Milli: Shabab-e-Milli provincial president Abdul Qadir Saraf said that his organisation had not removed the billboards. Concerning the deadline given by his organisation for the purpose, he said that its Peshawar chapter president had issued the deadline, and had also held a meeting with the district nazim and director City Development and Municipal Department (CD&MD) on the issue.

“We are thankful to the city district government and provincial government for removing these billboards,” he said. Saraf said that had the billboards been defaced by his organisation, they would have accepted responsibility for it.
Posted by: Fred 2008-05-04
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=238198