PESHAWAR, Feb 19: The city district council adopted a resolution on Wednesday, asking the government to change the name of the province from North-West Frontier Province to Pukhtunkhawa.

The council session was presided over by its convener Dr Iqbal Khalil. The resolution was moved by Malik Noushad, who said that in the Pashto literature this area was named as Pakhtoonkhwa, but later the British rulers changed its name as the NWFP.

Dr Iqbal Khalil put the resolution to vote and majority of the councillors expressed their support by show of hands.

Speaking on the occasion, many councillors opposed the resolution on the ground that the proposed name would generate controversies and also create a sense of deprivation among the non-Pakhtoon population of the province.

They suggested that the province should be named either Khyber or Abasin. The councillors who spoke in favour of the resolution included Ms Safia Naz, Aurangzeb, Masood Afridi, Ajmal Khan, Noor Rehman, Misal Khan, Sirajul Haq, Omar Khan, Ms Shamim Qaiser, Israrullah and others.

They said that the people of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan had been given their identity on the basis of their nationalities, but the Pakhtoon had been deprived of their name.

They pointed out that in 1985, the Peshawar Municipal Corporation and later the then NWFP Assembly had passed resolutions in favour of Pakhtoonkhwa. They said that the government should change the name of the NWFP according to the wishes of the people of the province.

Some other councillors, including Tehseenullah, Tariq Mateen, Ibadatullah, Saeed Butt, Haji Dost Mohammad and Malik Mohammad Zaman opposed the resolution and proposed that the government should evolve a consensus on the new name for the province.

They said besides Pakhtoon, other nationalities were also living in the province and the new name could divide people on linguistic and ethnic lines. They said the district council members had no concern with such issues and instead they should concentrate their energy on the resolution of civic problems.