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.