Funeral prayers of Baba Haider Zaman to be offered today

ABBOTTABAD: Senior politician and chief of Tehreek-e-Sooba Hazara (TSH), Baba Haider Zaman will be laid to rest on Thursday (today) at his native Kot Deval, after funeral prayers at the college ground here.

Baba Haider Zaman breathed his last yesterday at a private hospital of the federal capital at the age of 82, where he was under treatment.

Born in 1936, Mr Zaman earned recognition in 2010, when he launched movement for separate Hazara province after becoming the head of the Action Committee working for the cause.

He remained provincial minister and District Nazim of Abbottabad. During his tenure as Nazim he opposed the renaming of then NWFP to Pakhtunkhwa. He had also criticized Asif Ali Zardari, the then president of the country, for referring to the province as Pakhtunkhwa – saying this was unconstitutional and done to please coalition partners.

He was also involved in a petition against the provincial government of the NWFP claiming that they were curtailing the powers of district governments.

In May 2017, Baba Haider Zaman had announced to withdraw his threat not to allow Imran Khan to address a public meeting in Abbottabad after the provincial government agreed to meet his demands.

Baba Zaman’s announcement had come after an agreement was signed by then KP Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser, adviser to CM Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani and TSH secretary general Sardar Fida Hussain.

Mr Zaman had announced not to allow Imran Khan to address a public meeting in Abbottabad as his eight demands were not met by the KP government. The demands included payment of compensation to the families of seven persons killed in Abbottabad riots on April 10, 2010, jobs for the injured people and filing of FIR against the culprits involved in the killings.