February 23, 2003	Sunday	Zul Hijjah 21, 1423

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PESHAWAR, Feb 22: Leaders of the People’s Awareness Movement (PAM) have demanded the government should rename the NWFP as Pukhtunkhwa and reverse the decision of declaring Urdu as official language of the province.

The demands were made during a seminar organized by the PAM on the occasion of the World Language Day on Saturday.

Ajmal Khattak, Afrasiyab Khattak, Ghulam Ahmad Bilor, Haji Adeel, Murtaza Shaheen, Sher Zaman, Mukhtar Yousufzai and Dr Syed Alam spoke on the occasion.

The speakers demanded of the government to rename the province of Pukhtun people as they were being deprived of their identity.

Urging the provincial government to reverse the decision of declaring Urdu as an official language, the speakers said that Pushto was the main language of the region, but the government wanted to impose the language of Lucknow and Delhi.

Later, a rally was also organized to mark the World Language Day.