HAVELIAN — The Hazara Province Movement has strongly reacted to the exclusion of Hazara Province from the recent proposal for creating 12 new provinces, vowing to revive the unfinished mission of late Quaid Baba Haider Zaman and launch a renewed struggle for provincial status.
Addressing a press conference at Abbottabad Press Club, Hazara Province Central President Sultan-ul-Arifeen Jadoon, Central Secretary General Abdul Saboor Qureshi, Sardar Ghulam Muhammad, Sardar Muhammad Ramzan, and other leaders demanded that Hazara Province be given top priority. They also announced the convening of a Hazara-wide grand jirga of stakeholders to finalize the future course of action.
The leaders warned that if their demand was ignored, they would resume an organized movement similar to that of 2010, when seven lives were lost in the struggle. They said the people of Hazara would no longer accept “mere resolutions and hollow statements” and accused the state of punishing them for joining Pakistan in 1947.
Speakers emphasized that the rights of Hazara youth must be protected, particularly in the Hazara Electric Supply Company, where jobs up to grade 15 should be reserved for locals. They further demanded that electricity produced in Hazara through hydropower be provided to locals at Rs. 3 per unit and that the region be given its due share in royalty.
They reiterated that the establishment of Hazara Province is a fundamental right of the people, a demand from which they “will not back down.” The detailed plan for the movement will be announced in the upcoming grand jirga
