Sit-in outside court in Abbottabad

ABBOTABAD: Sardar Haider Zaman, chief of the Hazara Sooba Tehrik (Movement for Hazara Province), has renewed his pledge to continue his peaceful struggle for a separate province. However, he has, at the same time, warned the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government against “threatening” leaders of the movement.

Zaman was speaking to his supporters outside the Peshawar High Court, Abbottabad Circuit, where they staged a sit-in in protest against a report of the Judicial Commission on the April 12 Abbottabad rioting.

He urged the chief justice of Pakistan to take suo moto notice of what he called, the “massacre of Hazara movement workers.” He said that Hazara movement workers would stage a sit-in outside the Supreme Court building on June 16 along with the families of the slain workers of his movement.

Criticising the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government, Zaman said that instead of trying to heal the wounds of the Hazarewal, the government was issuing threatening statements in an attempt to muzzle the voices of those demanding a separate province.  “A separate Hazara province is our right and nobody can stop our struggle,” he added.

Former foreign minister Gohar Ayub Khan and other leaders of the Hazara movement also addressed protesters on the occasion. Protesters were carrying placards and banners and shouting slogans in favour of a separate Hazara province.

Heavy contingents of police were deployed to maintain order.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 15^th, 2010.