ISLAMABAD; Suba Hazara Tehrik (Movement for a separate province for Hazara) will start protest in front of Parliament House Islamabad and officially launch second phase of its campaign on January 30 for demanding a separate province.
Suba Hazara Tehrik will install camp in front of parliament and former parliamentarian belonging to Hazara division. Former federal minister for Tourism Sardar Muhammad Yousif will sit in the campaign.
The movement for a separate Hazara province rose again when federal government ensured formation of a separate province for Sairiki belt of Pakistan. The people of Hazara, claim they had long been ignored by the authorities, felt further alienated when former province of North West Frontier Post (NWFP) was renamed as Pukhtun Khawa. Tehrik-e-Soba Hazara (Movement for the province of Hazara) is demanding a separate province comprisisng of Abbotabad, Haripur, Mansehra, Batagram and Kohistan districts.
Every time the Seraikis of southern Punjab or Bahawalpuris of Bahawalpur raise their demand, the Hazaras of Hazara division also renew their demand of a separate province and try to build a case in their favour. With the passage of two separate resolutions by the Punjab Assembly for two new provinces, South Punjab and Bahawalpur, to be carved out of Punjab, the demands of the said communities are addressed to a large part. Hazara is a region of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It comprises six districts: Abbottabad District,Battagram District, Haripur District, Kohistan District, Mansehra District and now, since 28 January 2011, the new Tor Ghar District. It is a region that has many languages and ethnicities.
The origin of the name Hazāra is obscure.” This respected source continues: “It has been identified with Abisāra, the country of Abisares, the chief of the Indian mountaineers at the time of Alexander’s invasion.
The name Hazara has also been derived from Urasā, or ‘Urasha’, an ancient Sanskrit name for this region, according to Prof. Aurel Stein. Some distinguished Ideologists including Dr H. C. Raychaudhury, Dr B. N. Mukerjee, Dr B. C. Law, Dr J. C. Vidyalankar, Dr M. Witzel, Dr M. R. Singh and Prof K. N. Dhar concur with Prof. Stein’s identification of modern Hazara with ancient Urasa.
Evidence from the seventh century Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang, in combination with much earlier evidence from the celebrated Indian epic, the Mahabharata,[4] attests that Poonch and Hazara District of Kashmir had formed parts of ancient state of Kamboja, whose rulers followed a republican form of government. The region was called Hazara earlier, it was only made a district of that name, when under the British instead of a province.
