CHITRAL, Jan 3: Though the government has announced that the under-construction Lowari tunnel will remain open for two days a week, different political parties and civil society organizations continued their protest in Chitral on Friday.
In this regard, a protest demonstration and sit-in was held at Goldur Chowk in which leaders of the PPP, Jamaat-e-Islami, PML-N, PTI, APML and representatives of traders and transporters took part. The gathering was presided over by MPA Saleem Khan. Speaking on the occasion, Khan said the two-day opening of the tunnel was not enough to resolve the problems of Chitral. He said that the government was not taking interest in resolving the issues of the people of Chitral. If the tunnel was not opened for seven days a week the people of Chitral would be left with no other option but to stage a protest sit-in in Islamabad.
Those who also spoke on the occasion included former district nazim Maghfirat Shah of Jamaat-e-Islami, PML-N leader Saeed Ahmed, PPP Chitral general secretary Abdul Hakim Advocate, JUI district chief and former MPA Maulana Abdul Rehman, PTI general secretary Israruddin, APML president Shahzada Khalid Pervez, Faridullah Jan of the ANP, traders union president Habib Hussain Mughal, and district bar association president Alam Zeb Advocate.
The speakers said that due to the lack of interest to resolve the communication problems of Chitral by both the federal and the provincial governments, a sense of disappointment and deprivation was rising among the people of the valley. The participants of the gathering also prayed for the speedy recovery of former president Pervez Musharraf and paid tributes to him for his services to the people of Chitral.–Syed Nazir Hussain Shah]]>
