Radio Pakistan Peshawar, which was established on March 6, 1935, celebrated its 88th anniversary on Monday with a function.

Radio Pakistan Peshawar  started broadcasting from a room at the secretariat after educationist Abdul Qayyum Khan requested radio’s inventor Guglielmo Marconi to establish a small radio transmitter at Peshawar. Marconi also donated a few radio sets for the station that were later distributed among people.

The station has the distinction of announcing the independence of Pakistan at midnight on August 13-14, 1947 by eminent broadcasters Aftab Ahmad in Urdu and Abdullah Jan Magmom in Pashto languages.

The function to celebrate its anniversary was attended by Chief Minister’s special assistant for revenue, Syed Haroon Shah as the chief guest, Station Director of Radio Pakistan Peshawar, Syeda Iffat Jabbar, former chairman International Relations Department, University of Peshawar, Dr Adnan Sarwar Khan, senior broadcaster and academician Dr Abaseen Yousafzai, serving and retired officers, artists, musicians and poets.

In her welcome address, Jabbar, who is the first female station director and controller of Radio Pakistan Peshawar said it’s a unique station from where eminent poets and writers including Ahmad Faraz, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, Khatir Ghaznavi, Abbasi Yousafzai, renowned Pashto singers and musicians, Khyal Muhammad, Mashooq Sultan, Ahmad Khan, Shakeela Naz, Hidyatullah, Sardar Ali Takkar, Rafiq Shinwari, drama, film and stage artists, Agha Talash, Firdaus Jamal and others have started their professional careers.

Through its famous ‘Hindara’ program, it effectively highlighted Pakistan’s principled stand before the world after migration of millions of Afghan refugees following the USSR invasion of Afghanistan.

Radio Pakistan Peshawar has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University under which the former would provide technical support to the university for students’ education while the latter would use the platform of the national broadcaster for people and female education through its programmes.

Program Manager Abdul Majeed Baloch read out the message of Radio Pakistan’s Director General Tahir Hassan,  saying that all the required facilities would be provided to this station to bring more improvement in programmes in the wake of the era of digitalization.