New district of Upper Chitral announced by PTI govt

CHITRAL: PTI chairman Imran Khan at a public meeting, in the presence of KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak here, announce the setting up of the new district of Upper Chitral.

A few months ago, Mr Khan had promised in upper Chitral that he would press the chief minister to consider the feasibility of bifurcating Chitral into two districts. As the election year is nearing, many observers are of the view that the announcement to create the new district would be nothing than a political gimmick and a tactic to get votes as the provincial government was yet to put the needed infrastructure in place for which over Rs15 billion were needed.

However, the announcement is certainly a major breakthrough towards the fulfillment of the demand of the people of upper Chitral to have a district of their own. The chief minister on the occasion said Booni would be the headquarters of the new district of Upper Chitral which would start functioning soon. He said the notification for the establishment of the new district would be issued soon. He said with the announcement the PTI government had fulfilled its promise made with the people of Chitral.

Addressing the gathering, Imran Khan congratulated the people on the creation of the new district and said it would be a catalyst towards the resolution of issues of which he was aware of. He said if his party came to power in the next elections, he would be working on a number of emergency issues such as education, environment, corruption and governance. He said Chitral’s greenery was being denuded by lavish cutting of trees and the environment emergency would work to mitigate the issue.

He said that issues facing the people of Chitral, which was the largest district in the province, can only be resolved through empowering the local government. He said his party had introduced a system under which people of Chitral would not have to go to Peshawar to get their issues resolved. “But we made a mistake by not directly electing the district nazims. We should learnt from our mistakes and next time the district nazims will directly be elected y the people instead of the members of the district council. We will field such a candidates who knows how to manage things in the vast area of Chitral and the nazim will be assisted by technocrats.”

He said text time his party would also ensure that all development funds are spent through the local government instead of the MNAs or the MPAs. He was all praise for the peace and sharafat (civility) of the people of Chitral and added that we would like to spread this culture of Chitral to whole of Pakistan. He said he was delighted after the superintendent of the police told him that they had nothing to do in Chitral as there was no crime and the police were busy in promoting tourism in the valley instead. Imran said people in other parts of Pakistan should learn a lesson from the discipline, civility and peace maintained by the people of Chitral.

He said there were two places in Pakistan where people were known for peace and tranquility: Chitral and Baltistan. He said in Baltistan too there was no crime and the police had no record of even a single murder while people always left the doors of their houses as there were no cases of theft. The PTI chief spent most part of his speech on corruption in the country and his usual diatribe against the PML-N government, especially the Sharif family.

A large number of people attended the gathering from across the valley of Chitral. He said the judiciary had now explained the reasons why Nawaz Sharif was ousted as prime minister.