DROSH: Village council chairmen and members from Arandu have accused the district forest department of not cooperating with them to check timber smuggling out of the area.
At a meeting held in Drosh on Monday, Village Council Damel Chairman Haji Sher Zamin said the district forest officer was taking least interest in checking timber smuggling from the area.
He said there were scores of checkposts from Arandu to Drosh but smuggling of illegally-cut wood to Drosh and even Chitral town continued unabated, as checking timber smuggling seemed not a priority for them.
He said the forest department had no strategy to check illegal cutting of trees due to which elements linked with the mafia was cutting trees in Damel, Arandu and other areas.
Chairman Village Council Arandu Gol Haji Ghazi Khan, VC Chairman Arandu Abdul Majid Khan and village council members Nazar Khan, Hazrat Noor and Haji Sadat at the meeting demanded that special measures should be taken by the provincial government to protect the green cover of Chitral and check cutting of trees and its smuggling.–Jahan Zeb