PESHAWAR, March 30: Speakers at a political gathering on Wednesday said that abolition of the Durand Line would promote unity and bring about prosperity to the Pukhtuns living across the 112-year old frontier line drawn by force and dividing a nation into many parts. The gathering was organized by the Pukhtunkhwa Qaumi Party here at the Peshawar Press Club to mark the launching of a book on the Durand Line.

The book is a collection of assorted articles read out by politicians and intellectuals at a seminar on the Durand Line last year. Generally, there was a consensus among the speakers that the forcibly drawn boundary, which had divided a nation, should be abolished in the interest of the Pukhtun people.

PQP chief Lala Afzal Khan, Awami National Party former provincial chief Begum Nasim Wali Khan, veteran politician and poet Ajmal Khattak, National Awami Party Pakistan secretary-general Abdul Latif Afridi, Dr Said Alam Mehsud of the Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, Mufti Kifayatullah of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and others spoke on the occasion.

The nationalist leaders were of the view that the Duran Line should be abolished as it was against the interests of the Pukhtuns. They said a people divided into so many parts, like Pukhtuns, could not be called a nation. They underlined the need for bringing all the Pukhtuns, wherever they live, under one banner and one geographical unit.

Begum Nasim Wali Khan said it was an artificial line, drawn by the then English rulers of the subcontinent, to extend their divide-and-rule policy down to the Afghans territory. But, she recalled, the Pukhtuns had resisted it and refused to accept the English rule in their area.

Salim Raz asked the Pukhtun politicians to chalk out a strategy how they would end the Durand Line and where they would demarcate it — at Margala or at Jehlum. He said the Pakistan People’s Party was also opposed to the Durand Line.

Mr Afridi said the Durand Line had divided houses, families and tribes of the Pukhtuns living across both parts of the dividing line. He said it was inhuman and immoral to deprive a nation of its basic rights. Pukhtuns, he added, had never accepted this colonial decision and waged a number of battles against it.

Mufti Kifayatullah, a spokesman for the ruling MMA, opposed the demand made by the nationalist parties and urged them to get the Pukhtuns of the NWFP, Fata and Balochistan united in a single unit first and then aspire for the unity of others. He pointed out that all those MNAs, MPAs and senators, who had been administered oath under the1973 Constitution, could not oppose the existence of the Durand Line.

He said abolishing the Durand Line was tantamount to the break-up of the country, which was separated from Afghanistan by a boundary in the west, called the Durand Line. Bashir Ahmed Bilour of the ANP, however, rejected the views of Mufti Kifayatullah and dubbed these as anti-Pukhtun feelings.

Lala Afzal, host of the event, said the Durand Line was a great obstacle in the unity of the Pukhtun nation. This line, he added, was a scar on the face of Pukhtuns and should be abolished in the interest of the nation.