ANP-W marks Yaum-e-Babara

Karachi
The Awami National Party-Wali (ANP-W) commemorated Yaum-e-Babara by organising a gathering on Wednesday to pay tribute to people who were killed in a firing incident in the Babara village of the Charsadda district on August 12, 1948.
The gathering was organised at the Abaseen House in the Old Sabzi Mandi neighbourhood. A large number of ANP-W leaders and Pashtun literary and political activists attended.
On that day, law enforcers opened fire at a protest rally of the Khudai Khidmatgar Movement (KKM), also known as Red Shirt Movement, in the Babara village, resulting in the death of more than 150 people and injuries to around 400 men and women. Some reports, however, put the death toll at more than 600 .
Fazal Karim Lala, the ANP-W’s provincial president, said the party would not forget Bacha Khan-led KKM’s martyrs. He lauded the sacrifices of hundreds of unarmed members of the movement who were demanding the release of their leaders arrested by the NWFP government led by Qayyum Khan.
Qasim Jan, the party’s secretary general, said the party’s key leaders, Bacha Khan and Wali Khan, used to lead rallies and place flowers on the memorials of the Babara firing victims.
“In Karachi, we will continue the traditions and organise such remembrance events of every leader of the Pashtun nationalist movement,” he said while speaking to the gathering.