BAHAWALPUR: Prince Bahawal Khan Abbasi demands that the Punjab government raise Ahmedpur East to a full-fledged district headquarters level.

Speaking at an event on Saturday, Bahawal Abbasi (son of Nawab Salahuddin Abbasi), said this was a long-standing demand of residents of the tehsil headquarters and the current situation warranted it to be upgraded to the level of district headquarters.

He said Ahmedpur East was among those tehsil headquarters in the province, which by virtue of its population and revenue figures of territorial areas, was considered a big tehsil. But, he regretted the merger of defunct Bahawalpur State into the former One Unit, which was later dissolved under so-called Legal Framework Order (LFO) promulgated unconstitutionally under Martial Law by Gen Yahyah Khan.

He said the people of this area were meted out step-motherly treatment and were denied their rights. He said after former state’s inclusion in the then West Pakistan, none of the areas of Bahawalpur division was given the status of a district.

He said other areas such as Hasilpur, Chishtian (Bahawalnagar district), Khanpur and Liaquatpur (Rahim Yar Khan district) also fulfilled the criteria to become the district headquarters. He said the past rulers also ignored this demand of a district status for Ahmedpur East due to which the local population was facing multiple problems.

He said that during the PTI rule, there was a move by former chief minister Sardar Usman Buzdar to upgrade its tehsil headquarters but this proposal remained unimplemented. He said he had impressed upon PTI chief Imran Khan the need to upgrade the tehsil to the district level.

He said he intended to call on Chief Minister Parvez Elahi to convince him to accept the demand.

Published in Dawn, October 23th, 2022