Haider Zaman wants KP divided into four provinces

ABBOTTABAD: Sardar Haider Zaman, chief of Tehrik-e-Suba Hazara on Thursday called for carving out four provinces from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to facilitate the people of the neglected areas.

He asked the people of Hazara to vote for the political parties that had the one-point agenda of creation of Hazara province.

The elderly politician, commonly known as Baba Haider Zaman, was addressing the public meeting arranged here to mark the 7th anniversary of the violence in Abbottabad in which seven people were killed and over 100 injured while protesting the renaming of NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Former President General (R) Pervez Musharraf, who is head of All Pakistan Muslim League and is living in self-exile in the United Arab Emirates, also addressed the gathering by telephone.

Other prominent speakers at the Abbottabad meeting included Member National Assembly Jamshed Dasti, former federal minister Hameedullah Jan Afridi belonging to Fata and some of the local leaders of the Tehrik-e-Suba Hazara.

Baba Haider Zaman said the poor segments of the society struggled for Pakistan, but unfortunately they were denied basic rights after independence.

Talking about the coming general election, he said the Election Commission of Pakistan should provide equal chance to all the registered political parties to run their election campaigns.

The Tehrik-e-Suba Hazara chief believed that political parties had cheated the poor people as the masses had no voice in the elected forums. He called for getting rid of the corrupt and faulty system of governance as he felt it was meant to benefit the elite class.

Lashing out at the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led KP government, he said it totally failed to deliver in the health, education and other sectors. He claimed that there was bad governance and nothing had changed in the province.

General (R) Pervez Musharraf in his speech supported the demand for creation of Hazara province and called for increasing the number of provinces in the country.

Jamshed Dasti painted a bleak picture of the state of affairs with regard to the federal and Punjab governments and said both had failed to deliver. He said the rulers had no interest in public welfare and protection of the lives of the people and were trying to hide their corruption and save their skin.

Hameedullah Jan Afridi supported the creation of Hazara province and demanded “Qabailistan” as a new province in areas of Fata. He rejected outright the name of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) for the tribal belt as the name had been given by the British and it didn’t given the tribal people identity.