MANSEHRA: Lawyers, traders and religious scholars on Thursday urged mainstream political parties to jointly work for the creation of Hazara and other provinces in the country.

“We call for legislation by mainstream parties for Hazara and more provinces,” Tehreek-i-Sobah Hazara convener Mushtaq Khan told a function here. People from different walks of life attended the event.

Trader leaders Haroonur Rasheed and Mohammad Hanif said members of their community would continue supporting the cause of Hazara province.

Lawyer Iftikhar Alam said the county faced political and economic crises to the misery of the people.

He said political parties should legislate to create more and more federating units to strengthen the federation.

Jamiat ulema-i-Islam-Fazl leader Maulana Wasiur Rehman said the Constitution was required to be amended for Hazara and other provinces.

The participants also demanded punitive action against police officials involved in the killing of seven people during the April 2013 peaceful rally in Abbottabad for Hazara province.

Dues demanded: Contractors of government projects on Thursday called for the immediate payment of dues.

“Though the Election Commission of Pakistan hasn’t banned the release of payments to us [contractors] for the work done on development projects, the secretary to local government board illegally withheld our dues after the dissolution of the provincial assembly in January this year,” leader of the Government Contractors’ Association Raja Ishtiaq told reporters here.

Accompanied by members of the association, Mr Ishtiaq said contractors in the province were struggling to make ends meet due to nonpayment of dues amid record inflation.

He said the ECP had yet to notify the schedule for the KP Assembly elections but the LG board’s secretary had blocked the contractors’ payments by overstepping his authority.

Association leader Usman Iqbal said if those payments were withheld any further, contractors could stop work on development projects.

He said the ECP banned the transfer and posting of government officials as well as the inauguration of development projects and schemes after the election schedule was announced, so denying contractors dues even before that happened was unfair.

He warned that the association could give a call for street protests against the LG board’s secretary as the contractors and their families were distressed by nonpayment of dues.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2023