JI Chitral also holds rally in Islamabad

ISLAMABAD, Jan 20: About 150 people from different parts of Chitral on Monday afternoon held a protest demonstration in Islamabad’s D. Chowk demanding the daily opening of the under-construction Lowari tunnel in the winter. The protest was arranged by Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) leader and former MNA from Chitral, Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali. The motorcades of the protesters were stopped from entering the high security D. Chowk and the protesters had to reach the venue on foot to hold the protest. Addressing the protesters, Maulana Chitrali said the people of Chitral were facing lots of issues due to the closure of the Lowari Pass and the three-hour opening of the tunnel twice a week was not enough to clear the backlog. He said the government should open the tunnel daily from 8am to 10 am for passengers going out of Chitral and from 3pm to 5pm from Chitral-bound passengers. When ChitralToday asked the Maulana why the political parties of Chitral did not arrange a joint rally in Islamabad that could have been more forceful, he said he had contacted the leaders of almost all the parties, including Saleem Khan of the PPP, Ghulam Muhammad of the APML and the PTI leaders. They had promised that they would participate in the protest demonstration on Jan 20.

Though I had arranged the rally but for the accommodation of other political parties for the sake of Chitral I did not use the name and flag of the JI. But even then, these political leaders did not turn up at the protest on different pretexts, said Maulana Chitrali.

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