Whom We Request?

Dear Sir,

Village Parkusap is situated 6 KMs away from main town of Mastuj. The village is linked with Mastuj town and rest of Chitral by Jeebale bridge over the Yarkhoon River. Schools, hospitals, Post office, telephone exchange, banks, government grain store and other offices are situated at the main town of Mastuj. More than 300 students (boys and girls) from the village are studying in the high schools of Mastuj & Chuinj

The bridge is closed for all kinds of traffic since June 13, 2005 due to damage by flood. The villagers construct temporary bridge on self help basis in winter season, but remain totally block in summer i.e. from June to August.

In the year of 2006, 65 students left the school due to non availability of accommodation facility at Mastuj & Chuinj village, 6 persons died due to non excess to hospital.

In the Local Bodies election of 2005 the villagers were promised by Sikandar-ul Mulk that he will repair the bridge if they (villagers) use their vote in his favour. The villagers unanimously cost their vote in his favour, and later three councilors from the village also use their vote in his favour for tehsil nazim.

After wining the election both of union and tehsil nazim, our leader make only two visits to our village with fruitless promises. Now the villagers are waiting for another promise from the Mohyuddin in upcoming general election.

Through this online newspaper we would like to request the President General Perveez Musharaf and Prime Minister Shoukat Aziz to kindly consider our genuine problem and order the concern authority to repair the bridge before further exiting of students from schools and losing human lives. .


Regards,

Arsalan Yousuf Zond
The City School,
Islamabad.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Current situation and our political leaders

Dear Sir,

Obviously, the people of Chitral are passing through hard phase of their life these days, with an unprecedented damage to life and property, power breakdown and damaged infrastructure due to the recent snow-hit calamity. The government is giving deaf ear to the miseries of the affected people, which is evident from the fact that the relief -goods dispatched for the affected areas were not sufficient. The misappropriation in the relief goods and the lack of well- devised strategy, speaks volume of the in competency of our elected representatives. Our religious-turned-political leaders been sagacious enough, they would have come up with a well thought strategy to face with the emergency-like situation in Chitral.

In the aftermath of the avalanche-hit disaster, the restoration work had to be sped -up but due to non availability of required machinery it could not be possible. The question arises as to who is to be blamed? obviously, the elected representatives must confess the responsibility for the failure.

No doubt that calamities are mostly unpredictable, but if there is a well-devised strategy and required equipment in place the sufferings as a result of such disasters could be lessened to the utmost extent.

The problem with Chitralies is that they get deceived at the time of polling, competent and far- sighted people are ignored by giving preference to likes over dislikes. I do not mean to doubt anybody's sincerity, but there are other things also that need to be taken care of. As the general elections are around the corner, the Chitrallies ought to prefer talent and competency over party affiliation and personal like and dislike.

Khalid Pervez,
Peshawar