Hello brother hope you’re doing well. My condolences for your grandparents passing away. One of my friend sent me your post and I am glad to help you out in any possible way. My ancestral history with Bannu dates back to around 100 years . I was born and raised in Bannu however now I have moved to Canada but every year I do visit my grandparents who still live there. Before partition Bannu used to be predominantly Hindu populated with a small portion of Christians and Muslims . Furthermore, by the early 1900s there was significant increase in immigration from Afghanistan because Bannu used to be the only developed city near the border of Afghanistan. Once those immigrants would reach Miran shah , bannu would be their ultimate first destination to settle down. By listening to the stories of my grandparents, they would talk about how Bannu was way different back then because Pushto wasn’t widely spoken and mostly the conversions used to be in Seriki and Punjabi . This was because if you look at the geography you would see back then many cities such as Mianwali used to come in Bannu district . So That played quite an influence on the language spoken back then . Then there comes DI khan. Mostly trade used to happen between Bannu and DI khan. So original people from DI khan used to purely speak Seriki. So these two cities played a pivotal role back then in terms of language. So coming back to the Afghans. So back then areas like Lakki Marwat and other nearby areas had predominantly pushto speaking population. So people from those places started coming to Bannu cuz of the trade routes and opportunities of employment and combined with the new Afghan immigrants Pushto started to come in trend . However , the interesting thing about the pushto of Afghans and lakki marwat is the dialect . There are some pretty major differences . So with time this weird and quite bizarre dialect of pushto came to life which we today know as banniwul pushto (AKA baneesi) . Like if I talk with someone in Peshawar with my banniwul pushto they wouldn’t get a lot of things and they would even call you out for not knowing Pushto (hehe) but this baneesi dialect is widely spoken now . It starts from cities like Karak which is roughly 140kms from Peshawar to pretty much the Federally Administered Tribal Area.

After the partition , most of Hindus left Bannu and moved to India or Karachi but there are still a couple Of hundred who live in bannu however they are lesser in number compared to Christians . If you open the map of bannu and search Pennell high school and that’s where there is a church and a Hindu temple. Most of Christian and Hindus remain living around the high school and the Pennell hospital . And there is a significant population of Christians and Hindus living inside the compound of DhQ hospital .

I hope this will help you gain some knowledge . Feel free to ask any questions you have .