HARIPUR, Feb 25: Veteran politician and former NWFP chief minister Raja Sikandar Zaman Khan has rejected the proposed merger of six union councils of the Haripur district into the Islamabad Capital Territory and vowed to block the move.

Talking to Dawn from his Nikra Bangla residence on phone here on Sunday, the former federal minister for water and power said that without amending the Constitution the inclusion of an area in some other province or federal territory was illegal.

“For this matter the proposed plan needs the assent of two-thirds majority of the National Assembly and Senate subsequently,” he said terming the idea as vague and childish that was, according to Mr Zaman, floated by land mafia to attract investors so that they could sell the land on inflated rates.

He said that union councils of Jabri, Barkot, Najaf Pur, Tofkian, Khanpur and Pind Kamal Khan, that were proposed to be attached with Islamabad, were enjoying maximum facilities and their cost of living was within their available means but if implemented, the decision would bring about miseries, high cost of living, burden of taxes and other administrative problems for poor villagers.

“Every body knows about the plights of the people of the villages that are already within the territorial jurisdiction of the capital city,” he added urging the movers of the idea to first improve the living condition of shanty dwellers of Islamabad and its rural parts who had been striving for their rights for the last three decades.

By doing so, he apprehended, the Haripur district with 800,000 plus population would loose one of the four provincial assembly and half of the lone national assembly seats.

He said it was not acceptable to the people of the area, because the move would ruin the culture and environment of bordering union councils that were blessed with natural beauty of forests and springs.

He said the people of the six union councils would move the court if the plan was implemented.

PROTEST DEMO: Workers of the Pakistan People’s Party on Sunday staged a demonstration in protest against the elevation of Dr Faiza Rasheed to the post of president of the Haripur district.

They blocked the road at Panian Chowk Haripur when central party leaders Naheed Khan and Yousaf Raza Gilani on their way to Abbottabad were received by newly-elevated party president Dr Faiza Rasheed and her group of the PPP workers.

The workers belonging to the main group, headed by former district president Tahir Qureshi, senior vice-president Malik Abdul Hameed and Tehsil president Zulfiqar Qureshi stopped the central leaders and raised slogans against Dr Faiza.

They termed the decision a dictatorial one.

They demanded that she should be removed from the office.

The protesting workers, who had blocked the motorcade of the party leaders by lying down in the middle of road, also exchanged hot words with the supporters of Dr Faiza.

They ended the protest on the request of Behr-a-Man Tangi, the provincial party leader that the matter will be taken with the central leadership.