Build right: Kalabagh Dam need of the hour: Baba Zaman

TSH to continue its struggle for Hazara province

ABBOTABAD: Tehreek Suba Hazara (TSH) Chief Baba Haidar Zaman asked the federal government to start the construction of Kalabagh Dam without taking into account the objections raised by opposing political forces. He said this while speaking to the media at his residence on Wednesday.

Zaman said the Kalabagh Dam project was crucial as it would rid the country of energy crisis once and for all. “It would turn thousands of acres of infertile land into arable farmland,” he added.

“After Water and Power Development Authority’s former chairman Shamsul Mulk clearly stated the project was not harmful for any of the four provinces, no one can justify their opposition to it,” said Zaman. He added all those who were objecting to the construction of the dam were in fact opponents of Pakistan.



“One political party has been disseminating a great deal of negative propaganda and excessively objecting to the construction of the dam to gain political mileage,” Zaman said. “These are the same people who opposed the creation of Pakistan but the people of Hazara will not let this happen,” he added. “We will support the government just like we did when we voted in favour of the referendum of Pakistan in 1947.”

According to Zaman, the people of Hazara had suffered enormously but were always willing to offer sacrifices for the larger national interest.

“Over 100 villages were inundated when Tarbela Dam was built and thousands of graves of their ancestors were uprooted when Khanpur Dam, Ghazi Barotha Power Project and Hattar Industrial Estate were initiated,” he said.

In response to a question, he pledged support to the creation of a Hazara province. “TSH will struggle to achieve this objective which has been the demand of the people of Hazara for the last five decades.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd, 2015.