It has taken the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Assembly exactly one year to acknowledge the sacrifice of brave Hangu teenager Aitzaz Hasan who embraced a suicide bomber outside his school gates on January 6, 2014 and saved the lives of 300 schoolmates.
As Hasan’s martyrdom anniversary was marked across the country yesterday, opposition and treasury lawmakers of the provincial assembly showed rare unity and adopted a unanimous resolution praising the young hero.
PPP lawmaker Nighat Orakzai raised the matter in the house on a point of order and Speaker Asad Qaiser asked her to table a resolution after consulting other parliamentary leaders.
In stark contrast, when the assembly met on January 11, 2014 after the Hangu incident, Orakzai had raised Hasan’s sacrifice in the house only to be sidelined by a minister who tried to brush the issue under the carpet while trying to confuse the topic by ranting about the ’causes of terrorism’
However, this time the house had a consensus; Nighat Orakzai, PPP’S Syed Mohammad Ali Shah Bacha, QWP’s Bakht Baidar Khan, JI’s Inayatullah Khan, PTI’s Imtiaz Shahid, JUI-F’s Munawar Khan and AJIP’s Shahram Khan Tarakai jointly moved the resolution.
“For more than a decade, K-P has turned into a battlefield. Not only security personnel but civilians have laid down their lives,” read the resolution. It added that the sacrifices of Aitzaz Hasan and Army Public School students and teachers have united the nation against terrorism.
“Aitzaz sacrificed himself to save 300 of his schoolmates and teachers. This assembly pays tribute to him for this selfless act,” the resolution read, asking the provincial government to name Kohat-Hangu Road after Aitzaz Hasan.
Lawmakers also demanded “fictitious tales” be removed from school curriculum and chapters on local heroes added.
Incidentally, ANP’s Syed Jafar Shah also attempted to put Swat teenager Malala Yousafzai’s name in the resolution. However, the final draft passed by the house did not have her name. The KPK provincial assembly has yet to praise or congratulate the Swat teenager who recently made the nation proud by winning the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.
