Reacting to Mutahida Quami Movement (MQM) resolutions on creating two new provinces, the Awami National Party (ANP) leadership said the demand to give provincial status to Hazara was based on ill-intensions. “The MQM leadership is using the move to pave ways for the divisions of Sindh and materialising its high command’s long standing dream of creating Jinnah Pur,” ANP Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa President Senator Afrasiab Khattak remarked during a press conference on Wednesday. He was flanked by ANP members including Provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain. Khattak said people from three out of six Hazara division districts had demanded a separate division. He said the MQM has no justification to amalgamate the genuine demand of the Saraiki people with the Hazara demand and that the ANP had been a long-standing advocate of the Saraiki province.
He said the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and other political parties share the opinion but the MQM, by making unrealistic demands, is creating problems for the PPP and its coalition partners. He said the ANP will not accept the division of Sindh, which was against the interests of all, including the Urdu speaking community. He said the Hazara province demand was from two and half districts, and was therefore “unjustified.” He said the current KP government was giving ‘undue’ respect to the residents of the Hazara division but “hidden hands” were provoking them. He said any differences could be resolved through dialogue. He said if the MQM wanted to reach out to the Saraiki and Hazara people it must protect them in Karachi.
No need for Hazara province, ANP tells MQM
