CHITRAL, April 19: The royalty holders and forest owners here have warned that they will stop the transportation of timber out of the valley to Chakdara.
Addressing a press conference here, Sher Mohammad, the general secretary of all joint forest management committees and a former nazim of the union council Shehishikoh, and others said the precious timber was being sent to Chakdara timber market from Chitral but the local purchasers of wood had decreased its rate under a conspiracy.
They said they never levelled any allegation against the forest development corporation (FDC) because it performed its duty very honestly. But some contractors mixed precious timber with rejected ones and wanted to decrease its rate. Sher Mohammad said a news statement related to him published in different papers was baseless and wrong. He denied any allegation against the FDC to be involved in the conspiracy.
They praised deputy manger marketing Murad Ali Khan and said he was an honest officer. “We protest only against local purchasers of forest at Chakdara. It is an open market and nobody should be allowed to impose their monopoly.” They said grading and measurement of timber was the responsibility of the government and local purchases should be discouraged from interference in grading of forest. They demanded that the local purchasers should be stopped from grading of trees. They also demanded that the timber depot in Chakdara should be shifted to other place otherwise the owners of forest and royalty holders of Dir, Swat, Kohistan and Chitral would stop supply of forest to the point.—GH Farooqui]]>
