Ayun residents end hunger strike after 13 days

CHITRAL, May 3: The hunger strike organized by the residents of Ayun village was called off on Saturday after successful negotiations with a jirga on behalf of the government. The hunger strikers marched to the Chitral Press Club from the hunger strike camp established at Secretariat Road on Saturday evening along with the members of the jirga and announced their decision to call off the strike which had entered its 13th day. The demands of the Ayun villagers were an immediate halt to the ruthless cutting of trees in the local forest, ban on commercial scale cutting of the forest trees and the withdrawal of the criminal cases against the village activists established by the former government for protesting for the conservation of the forest. Addressing a press conference, the convener of the action committee for the forest conservation, Fazlur Rahman said the jirga members were fully authorized on behalf of the district administration and forest department which showed the earnestness of the government to solve the problem of deforestation. He said that the jirga members Shahzada Sareerud Din, Haji Anzar Gul, Haji Sher Muhammad, Haji Abdur Rahman agreed to 90 percent of their envisaged plan to arrest the deforestation. He said that deforestation was the grave problem for the villagers whose village was highly vulnerable to the flash floods which were directly caused by felling the green trees in the forests. Mr. Rahman said that the villagers will never compromise on the conservation of forest and will not shrink from any sacrifice. He said that the residents of Ayun were subjected to a worst type of brutality during the former government when they raised their voice against the timber mafia.–Zahiruddin  ]]>