Violent protests warned throughout Hazara if province not made

Demand Hazara province be created with passing of 24th Amendment.

ABBOTABAD: Chief of the Tehreek-e-Suba Hazara party, Baba Sardar Haider Zaman, has warned of violent protests if the National Assembly passes the 24th Amendment without creating a Hazara province.

Speaking to participants at a public gathering on Wednesday, Zaman said the decades-old demand for a separate Hazara identity had been put on the backburner to appease supporters of the Awami National Party. He added it was the Hazara people’s sacrifices that had motivated rulers to think about new provinces in the first place.

“Whether it is the Pakistan Peoples Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, or Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, they have all cheated the Hazara people,” he alleged, adding these parties had never respected their demands. Zaman went on to claim these parties had a majority in parliament and could have easily created the Hazara province but chose, instead, to score political points. “Enough is enough. We are not going to allow them to push the Hazarawals against the wall anymore.”

Baba warned there would be division-wide protests and roadblocks and said his followers would not desist from repeating the events following April 12, 2010, when the entire division was paralysed by protests held against the killing of several Hazara workers.



He told the gathering his party would field candidates for national and provincial seats along with some selected constituencies of Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi. Zaman accused the ruling parties of being corrupt and further said they had led the country to the brink of collapse, with corruption at its peak. “Institutions are badly infected with the virus of corruption, mismanagement and nepotism.”

Fida Hussain, Sardar Saeed, and Engineer Sultan also spoke to participants at the address.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 14^th, 2013.