By Bureau report
The convention, organised by Hazara Qaumi Mahaz, was addressed by Mansehra district Nazim Sardar Mohammad Yousaf, Abbottabad Nazim Sardar Haider Zaman and Baba Rafique Khan.
The speakers expressed concern over the rising lawlessness in the NWFP and said that it was high time for the federal government to realise the spate and severity of insurgency and terrorism in the province. They demanded division of NWFP into two units by giving Hazara the status of a province.
Airing grievances of the Hazara people, the speakers alleged that people from other regions of the province had been appointed against 90 per cent posts in government institutions of Hazara. This, they added, was an injustice and resulting in a sense of deprivation among the people of the division.
Coming down hard on the policies of Dr Ihsan Ali, vice-chancellor Hazara University, the speakers said that it was a grave injustice that the governor had appointed a man from outside Hazara as the head of the university. The alleged injustice by the vice-chancellor had triggered strikes at the university, wasting the precious time of the students, they added.
Laying a claim to hydel net profits and royalty on Tarbela Dam, the speakers said hundred of thousands acres of land of 127 villages of Hazara went under water when the dam was constructed in 1974. They said thousands of families displaced by the dam construction were still awaiting compensation for loss of their land. They lamented that the hydel net profits and royalty received from the federal government on Tarbela Dam was not being spent on the people of Hazara.
They said Hazara was endowed with natural resources but the provincial government was paying no attention to the welfare and uplift of the people belonging to the biggest division of the NWFP.
AFSTA seeks release of salaries: In Peshawar, member of the All Fata Schools Teachers Association (AFSTA) Saturday staged a demonstration outside the Peshawar Press Club, seeking immediate release of their salaries.
They said that they had not been given their salaries for the last four months, adding the government should increase their remuneration from Rs3,000 to at least Rs10,000.