Eighth Hazara riots anniversary: Calls for Hazara province revived

Baba Haider Zaman urges people to reject parties who do not back his movement; gets support from Musharraf

ABBOTTABAD: With general elections, just a few months off and talks of a new province in south Punjab being echoed again, a long-term proponent of a province for people living in the Hazara division has called for splitting Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa into four provinces per administrative lines.

The call was made by Baba Haider Zaman, the chief of the Tehrik Suba Hazara Party (TSHP) while addressing a public meeting in Abbottabad on the eve of the eighth anniversary of Youm-e-Shuhada.

On this day in 2010, Zaman had led a procession in favour of the Hazara province which was then baton-charged by police. The protesters were then allegedly fired upon by police leaving seven pro-Hazara province activists dead while 104 others were injured.



Zaman urged residents of Hazara not to vote for those political parties who are not in favour of creating the Hazara province.

The TSHP chief said that the power and the lower strata of society were the ones who had truly struggled to form Pakistan. However, they were now being denied their basic rights.

He said that general election will continue to be a massive waste of resources unless the entire system is revamped.

Reiterating his call to model the electoral process on the one employed in Europe, Zaman suggested that elections should not be held in one day, rather they should be spread over a month.

Moreover, he urged the election commission to ensure that an equal chance is provided to all registered political parties to campaign rather than allow rich individuals dictate campaigns. This, he claimed, leads to protests injects corruption into the system by setting up a cycle of loot and plunder.

The TSH chief accused every political party of cheating the poor who are ultimately not left with a voice in what are supposed to be representative corridors of power.



He said that it was the need of the hour to rid the country of such a corrupt and faulty system which is meant to keep the elite class in power.

While lashing out at the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government, Zaman said that the incumbent government had failed to deliver health, education and other facilities.

Terming claims of bringing a change in the province by the government an eyewash, he said that there are plenty of examples of bad governance to be found.

Former president General (retired) Pervez Musharraf, in his short telephonic speech, backed Zaman’s demands for a Hazara province.

He added that the number of administrative units including tehsils and districts had increased across the country, but the number of provinces has remained stagnant.

Musharraf claimed that to stop the corruption of the rulers, it was imperative that the number of provinces in the country increase.

MNA Jamshed Dasti aggressively painted a bleak picture of the state, especially in Punjab.

Terming the current situation amongst the worst in history where nothing is “good” but all is bad. He also lashed out at the internal and external policies adopted by the government.

He lamented that people, including children, continue to die in violent incidents but no justice or relief is being provided to the victims.

“They [rulers] have lost interest in protecting the lives of the people and are busy in saving their corrupt rulers and their corruption,” he said in a thinly veiled swipe at the ongoing case of deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

“Time has come that people should take revenge from these rulers if they want to live with honour and dignity.”

Former federal minister Hameedullah Jan Afridi demanded that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) should be made a separate province called “Qabailistan”.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 13^th, 2018.