Booni residents protest winding up of streetlight project
Report S.N. Peerzada
BOONI, July 6: A protest gathering was held at the Booni Chowk against the winding up of the solar streetlight project for the local bazaar on Monday.
The public gathering was arranged by Tanzeem Huqooq-e-Awam Upeer Chitral in which a large number of people participated.
Speakers on the occasion came down hard on MNA Iftikhar Uddin saying by winding up the project he had stabbed the people of the area in the back. They said the lawmaker had been hell-bent on abandoning the project and divert the money to other areas in upper Chitral where it could be embezzled.
The speakers said former MNA Shahzada Mohiuddin got votes from upper Chitral for over 30 years but did nothing for the area. Now his son Iftikhar Uddin is also following the footsteps of his farther by taking such anti-people decisions, they added.
They also criticized MPA Sardar Hussain and declared him as the most weak and inept MPA the area has ever seen. They said Sadradr Hussain did nothing for the area but hoodwinked the people through his skillful and deceptive oratory.
The protesters even did not spare the Tehsil Municipal Administration, especially the tehsildar Mastuj, for verbally ordering the stamp vendors to enhance different stamp fees. They said the students of the area were being charged Rs300 to Rs600 as the domicile fee while the district and sessions judge Chitral had fixed the fee at just Rs70. The protesters demanded that action should be taken against the officials concerned for looting the citizens.
When contacted, Tehsildar Ilyas Ahmed about the domicile fee, he said fixing the fee for the domicile declaration form was the authority of the district and sessions judge. He said the fee for the form had been fixed at Rs200 but the local stamp vendors and petition writers had increased the amount on their own.
In the meantime, the father of a student from Brep complained to the tehsidar that he was charged Rs600 for the domicile form in Mastuj. Officials here told ChitralToday that every year about five to eight thousand students applied for making the domicile certificates in upper Chitral.