New Delhi: A record area of 5,000 hectares in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan has been brought under poppy cultivation this year, with the Islamic fanatics describing it as a fallout of anti-US sentiments, with some terming it as an "atom bomb" for America.

According to Pakistani weekly 'The Friday Times', this year, nearly 5,000 hectares of land in these two provinces was brought under poppy cultivation, breaking the earlier record of 950 hectares in 1998.

Quoting observers, the weekly said the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) government in the province "appears soft" on poppy growers and senior Jamaat leader Malik Faiz Muhammad Khan has defended its cultivation saying, "General sahib (Pervez Musharraf) has got us in the cross hairs to appease the United States".

Growing anti-US feelings seem to have contributed to the increase in land under poppy cultivation and Khan asked the Muslims to use drugs as an "atom bomb" against the US, "since it attacks only Muslim countries".

"Many people think the Muslim world can use drugs as a weapon against the United States," Union Council Nazim Jehanzeb Khan was quoted as saying by the weekly.

Leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazlur Rehman group) Maulvi Fazel had decreed that poppy cultivation was "Islamic" and Malik Fazel Haq of PML (Qaid-e-Azam) told 'The Friday Times' that local Mullahs issued "fatwa" in support of poppy cultivation.

PTI