Pashto-speaking areas: Fresh demand for formation of Abaseen division

Participants of a meeting urge CM Hoti to make good on his promise.

BATTAGRAM: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) chief minister (CM) has been asked to make good on his promise to make Pashto-speaking areas in Hazara a separate division.

Participants of a meeting of Tehrik-e-Abaseen on Sunday demanded that a notification to this effect be issued before the dissolution of sitting assemblies.

CM Ameer Haider Khan Hoti made the promise back in 2011 in his visit to Battagram.

Later in Torghar, CM Hoti had promised that the notification will be issued by the end of 2012. That did not happen.

If formed, the Abaseen division will consist of Battagram, Torghar and Kohistan districts. The division will also annex part of the Mansehra district, where Pashto is predominantly spoken.

Hoti made the announcement when the movement for a separate Hazara province was at its peak.

The ruling Awami National Party’s detractors had termed the announcement as a “mere political slogan” aimed at undermining the Hazara province movement, by creating a rift among the political workers of pro-Hazara movement.

The meeting on Sunday was chaired by Tehrik-e-Abaseen vice-chairman Javed Iqbal Olasyar and attended by the movement’s office bearers and members.

Participants at the meeting urged CM Hoti to announce development schemes and the structure of the new administration division, as promised.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2013.