KP political leaders demand removal of controversial lesson from textbook

SWABI: The leaders of all political parties here Sunday demanded the removal of the controversial lesson printed in the ninth grade English textbook about Malik Kalu Khan, a hero of the Pakhtuns.

They were speaking at a convention focusing on Kalu Khan at the Haqqani Library Hall. The Yousafzai Action Committee had arranged the event.The leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party, Qaumi Watan Party, Awami National Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Nazriyati, Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakistan Awami Party and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf spoke on the occasion. The representatives of the Swabi Bar Association and journalists as well as literary figures were also among the speakers.

It was decided that members of the Yousafzai Action Committee would meet Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser who belongs to Swabi, members of the Textbook Board and provincial education minister soon in Peshawar to take up the issue. The meetings would be arranged by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leaders.

Muhammad Jamil, a columnist and founder of the drive to remove the controversial lesson from the textbook, said it was great injustice that a Pakhtun hero, Kalu Khan, had been portrayed as a robber and dacoit in a book published by a department of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.

Former provincial ministers Awwal Sher Khan and Ghafoor Khan Jadoon, Saleem Khan of QWP, Najeem Khan from Jamiat Ulema-i-Islami-Nazriyati, District Nazim Aamir Rehman, Nasim Ghulam Haqqani, Wahid Shah, Iftikhar Ahmad Khan of PML-N, Mehmoodul Hassan of Jamaat-i-Islami, Rangaiz Khan of PTI, Javed Inqilabi of Pakistan People’s Party, Muhammad Ali of Pakhtunkhwa Ulasi Tehrik, Muhammad Jalil of Abaseen Union of Journalists, Muhammad Sagheer of Swabi Bar Association, Aziz Maneriwal of Qam Qalam, Prof Yaseen Iqbal, Prof Farmanuddin and others spoke at the event and condemned the author and the Textbook Board for insulting freedom fighter Malik Kalu Khan who fought against the Mughal emperors.