They came up with the claim that all this was politically motivated propaganda against Mr Latif by his opponents. Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, the office-bearers Abdul Hadi, Muhammad Rafi, Abdur Razaq, Zafar Khan and others said being stakeholders of forest in Achhulga village, it was their moral obligation to clear some misgivings about the PTI leader who was being accused of cutting green forest. They said that three years ago when the forest of Achhulga was marked by the forest department for routine harvesting, the residents of the area approached the PTI leader, then a contractor, to use his registration to get the contract of harvesting, logging and transportation to which he yielded. He delegated a power of attorney to one of the community members, Muhammad Farooq, who got the contract in his name and the community started work on the harvesting of marked trees of the forest, they added. They said that the work was to be stopped when the district administration ordered to expel the laborers from the forest due to security reasons as some of the forest laborers had been murdered by terrorists in the nearby jungle engaged in harvesting. The JFMC leaders added that work could not be restarted on harvesting for the next six months waiting green signal from the administration but during this period, unknown persons had cut and stolen a number of trees from the compartment of the forest. For more read here: https://www.chitraltoday.net/2014/06/13/pti-chitral-chief-battling-to-get-over-rs400-million-penalty-waived/#sthash.9o9PPeja.dpbs The forest department authorities imposed fine on the contractor for cutting the green trees in the compartment on the basis of wrong information provided by the opponents of the PTI leader, they said. They reiterated that even if illegal cutting of trees in the forest had been carried out in the compartment, even then the PTI leader had nothing to do with it who had delegate his powers to the community through one of their members. They contended that after the eviction of the contractor and the labourers from the forest, it was the responsibility of the government to look after it to stop the illegal cutting of trees. A large number of the villagers had thronged the press club to express their solidarity with the PTI leader while the attorney holder was also present who showed the relevant documents to the journalists including the order for the eviction of laborers and stoppage of work.]]>
