BOONI: At a meeting held at Drasun on Wednesday, the local people warned the government against closing the post office in the village.
They said the post office still served a large part of the remote area and the authorities concerned should withdraw their decision to wind it up.
Pakistan Post has reportedly closed down three of its 13 post offices in Chitral. The closed down branches included the one at Drasun, which was established as early as in 1964, Koghuzi and Ashrait in Lower Chitral.
Earlier, village council chairman Abdur Rafi and elders Hamid Jalal, Mubarak Shah and others of Drasun had said closure of the facility would create multiple issues for the residents as Pakistan Post was the only available agency here to send and receive letters and other consignments.
They said that thousands of students registered with different universities under the distant learning system would have to discontinue their studies. They said call letters from various public and private sector organisations were always delivered by the Pakistan Post.
The residents said that the British rulers had established a post office in Mastuj town of Upper Chitral in 1896 after annexing Chitral an year earlier due to the significance of the facility and in doing so, they did not consider its profitability as it linked the people with the government.
They alleged that the high-ups of Pakistan Post had taken the arbitrary step of closing down the post offices to conceal their wrongdoings in the recruitment process last year when people from Dir, Swat and Buner districts were appointed to the posts of mail runner and postman.
The residents said the post offices were being closed down in Chitral so the non-local employees could be posted to their home districts.