Islamabad: While President Asif Ali Zardari has been hailed for presiding over the changing of the North-western province's name to Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, the region's non-Pashtun community has intensified its protests.
Banners bearing pictures of Zardari have placed at vantage points in the capital on behalf of the Pashtun organisation. They state that the present and future generations of Pashto-speaking people will remain grateful to the president.
However, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, the party in power for five years under former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, yesterday announced it would strongly support the campaign of the people of the Hazara, a section of the province.
"We [will] protest with our full might in the Senate when the constitutional reforms Bill is taken up there," PML-Q president, Senator Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said.
The Constitutional Amendment Bill, which includes a clause renaming the former North West Frontier Province as Khyber Pakhtunkhawa, was unanimously passed by the 342-member National Assembly with the required two-thirds majority.
It has to be similarly adopted by the 100-member Senate before it can come into force and the upper house where PML-Q has sizeable presence is due to start a debate on the reforms package tomorrow.The PML-Q leader blamed the main opposition PML-N of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for hurting the sentiments of the people in Hazara by supporting the new name.
Rallies have been held daily in parts of Hazara over the past ten days amid demands that a referendum be held in the region to decide a name for the region. Protesters have aslo demanded that a separate province be created for the Hazara people, should the referendum fail.
Boycott
Various civil society bodies in Hazara have warned that people would not cooperate and boycott the use of Pakhtun Khawa for the registration of vehicles and other services.
The PML-Q also held a meeting yesterday in the province's capital of Peshawar and another gathering in the southern port city of Karachi as part of its pro-Hazara campaign.
Sharif's party has scheduled a workers convention for tomorrow in Abbaotabad, a hill resort town of Hazara division, to counter the anti-Pakhtunkhawa campaign. The party said it backed the new name as it was in the nation's interest.
The province's ruling Awami National Party (ANP) and its workers have been holding celebrations, condemning their opponents and defending the new name that reflects the region's Pakhtun majority.
