Patiala, February 17: THE culture and heritage of people who came from North West Frontier Province (NWFP), now in Pakistan, and were relocated in Patiala in 1947, was being ignored at the Patiala Heritage Festival, complained some writers here today.

Eminent novelist, writer and critic of Punjabi Prof S.Soz said Patiala Heritage Festival was incomplete without the involvement of the people who migrated here during the partition and settled in Patiala on the call of late Mahraja Yadavindra Singh. Prof Soz has written over four dozen books in Punjabi and about a dozen novels in Hindko language.

Hindko is one of the main languages spoken in NWFP. Prof Soz said over 5 lakh persons from Mardan, Rawalpindi, Multan, Jalalabad, Peshawar, had settled in Patiala district and they wanted to get linked to their roots in some way but no government in Punjab and elsewhere had respected their sentiments.

He said even the languages department and Punjabi University has made no separate arrangement for the upliftment of their language and culture.

Another writer Gurmukh Singh Sehgal, who belongs to Jalalabad (now in Afghanistan) said he had written four novels in Hindko language and complained that their heritage was lost in the changing face of society. He recalled that after some films were made in the years following partition but soon the process had stopped.

The president of Punjabi Sahit Sabha, principal Mohan Singh Prem, who had also written few novels in Hindko said the state government and Patiala Heritage Society should come forward to save this culture of Hindko diaspora.

Two days earlier, Samta party chief Jaya Jaitley had also expressed similar views and had said the heritage should not be restricted to one family and it should be by the people and for the people.

Earlier, three writers Gulzar Singh Sandhu (Punjabi), Ganga Prasad Vimal (Hindi) and Joginder Pal (Urdu), presented their work and a reading of their short stories was organised.