Pubdate: 3 Apr 1999 Source: United Press International Copyright: 1999 United Press International MEDIA BARON'S ARREST STIRS CONTROVERSY ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, April 3 (UPI) - The arrest of a media baron on charges of drug trafficking has annoyed Pakistan's powerful Pashtoon ethnic group, which accuses the government of political victimization. On Friday, Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) arrested the owner of a major newspaper group and two of his accomplices with 20 kilograms of hashish. Later ATN's director, Brigadier Riaz Khan, told a news conference that they arrested Rahmat Shah Afridi and two of his accomplices while he was coming out of a hotel in Lahore. They had hidden 20 kilograms of hashish in their car, he said. The accused later told authorities they had smuggled a truckload of hashish from Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal area, Khan said. The ATN also captured the truck and seized the hashish, he said. Afridi owns the Frontier Post group which publishes two daily newspapers in the English and Urdu languages. Published from the capital of the Pashtoon dominated northwestern province, the English language Frontier Post supports the opposition. The newspaper is particularly critical of the government's policy towards Pakistan's smaller provinces. The current government is dominated by politicians from the largest province of Punjab. It demands greater autonomy for smaller provinces and accuses Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of discriminating against them. Sharif is also from Punjab. ``The action against Afridi is politically motivated. We believe the charges against him are false,'' said Haji Adeel, deputy speaker of the state assembly of the northwestern frontier province (NWFP). In a joint statement several other Pashtoon parties also condemned Afridi's arrest and vowed to launch a countrywide protest in his favor. Even the Islamic Jamaat-i-Islami party, which opposes the Pashtoon nationalist groups, has demanded a judicial inquiry. Pashtoons are Pakistan's second largest ethnic group and a majority in neighboring Afghanistan. The United Nations and Western drug enforcement agencies say that Afghanistan's Pashtoon dominated areas are also a major source of opium. The opium is then processed into heroin in the semi-autonomous tribal areas of Pakistan. Most of the opium is consumed locally as Pakistan has almost three million drug addicts. Part of it is also smuggled to the West Since Afridi also comes from the tribal area, he has often been accused of drug trafficking but the charges have never been substantiated. Western drug agencies also accuse Pakistan of catching small drug pushers while at the same time ignoring major smugglers. Western pressure forced Pakistan to form the anti-narcotics force. - --- MAP posted-by: Mike Gogulski