Baachaa wants NWFP renamed as Afghania

The News - Thursday, December 31, 2009 

PESHAWAR: A nationalist lawyer Barrister Baachaa has called for renaming the NWFP as Afghania to put an end to the longstanding controversy over the issue. In a statement, he expressed reservations over the reported proposal by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz to name the province as Pakhtunkhwa-Hazara.

“If we went along with the PML-N proposal, then the Seraiki-speaking people in Dera Ismail Khan, Hindko-speaking in Peshawar and Kohat and the surrounding areas and Khowar-speaking Chitralis would also have to be accommodated leading to the naming the province as Pakhtunkhwa-Hazara-Hindko-Seraiki-Chitral,” he added.

Opposing the Pakhtunkhwa-Hazara name, Barrister Baachaa said that Hazara was an integral part of the NWFP. He said majority of the people in Hazara were proud of their Pakhtun ethnicity although they did not speak Pashto. He said during his incarceration in Haripur Prison, he had a lengthy discussion on subject of renaming the NWFP with fellow prisoners of the lawyers’ movement from Hazara. He said they favoured a change of name, but unanimously opposed the name ‘Pakhtunkhwa’. He pointed out, his counterparts from Hazara had no objection to renaming of the NWFP as Afghania.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=216129