PESHAWAR, July 6: The Chitral Journalists Forum has launched a signature drive for the construction of Lawari tunnel which would connect the five millions population of Chitral valley to rest of the country specially during the winter months.

The drive, organized by Chitral Journalist Forum (CJF) was inaugurated by Afrasiab Khattak, chairman Human Rights Commission of Pakistan at the Peshawar Press Club on Saturday.

Khattak said it is the constitutional responsibility of the state to provide communication facilities to the people.

He deplored the fact that successive governments have failed to fulfil this genuine and longstanding demand of the people of Chitral and assured the CJF that the HRCP activists would support the journalists’ body campaigning for the construction of the tunnel at Lawari.

The president of the Peshawar Press Club praised the CJF for helping the people in their struggle to have the tunnel built.

Zulfiqar Ali Chitrali, general secretary of the CJF informed that the signature campaign would continue for three months after which it would be sent to President Gen Musharraf through the NWFP governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah.

He said that Chitral was the first state to announce unconditional annexation with Pakistan in 1969 which was given a district status the same year.

He said that an amount of Rs3 billion had been announced for the construction of the tunnel, but lamented that there was no mention in the budget document.

The people of Chitral, he said, used to take long route via Kunar, Afghanistan, which was extremely unsafe. And travelling by air is expensive.

The construction work on the Lawari tunnel, he said, had started in 1974 and one and half kilometres of the total length of eight kilometres of the tunnel had been completed, but was abandoned in 1977.

A retired professor, Israruddin said that the British had planned its construction in 1896, but the plan was shelved due to fear of infiltration by the Russians.