BACHA Khan was a Pakhtun leader, but he never liked living in Pakistan. He had asked to be buried in Afghanistan and therefore after his death he was buried on the Pakistan-Afghan border area.

After reading such a history of Bacha Khan, I was surprised when the previous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government changed the name of Peshawar international airport to Bacha Khan airport. A main junction of Peshawar was also named Bacha Khan Chowk.

My question to authorities is: what benefit do the people get by changing names of public property after dead politicians and leaders, especially when those leaders did not even want to be buried in Pakistan? It should also be realised that changing names of public locations creates an unnecessary cost for updating boards, maps, official documents etc.

I urge the PTI government to pass a law that bans the use of names of leaders and politicians for public buildings.

Shahryar Khan Baseer

Peshawar

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2017