No holiday on Iqbal Day for the people of Punjab

Students and working professionals waiting for a holiday on Iqbal Day were disappointed as the Interior Ministry released a notification which stated that tomorrow will be a working day and will not be observed as a public holiday.

Iqbal Day, which is observed as the great poet’s birthday on November 9 each year, used to be a public holiday but it was abolished last year. Someone even filed a suit in court asking for Iqbal Day to be re-declared as a public holiday but the decision was not ruled in his favor.

Just last week, two notifications were reportedly released by the interior ministry which made rounds on social media, stating that November 9 will be declared as a public holiday. However, it turned out that these notifications were fake and the ministry denied releasing any such notices.

The ‘fake’ notifications went viral, prompting the ministry to release a clarification. “We have not issued any notification,” an interior ministry spokesperson told a local newspaper. “The notifications dated November 4 and November 7 are both fake.”

The spokesperson also added that it was the provincial government’s prerogative whether to declare a public holiday or not. The Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments have already declared tomorrow as a holiday.

Iqbal Day is celebrated every year as a way to pay tribute to our national poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal. He was born on November 9, 1877 in Sialkot.

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Posted by fatimaarshad on Nov 8 2016. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.