January 20, 2003	Monday	Ziqa'ad 16, 1423

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CHITRAL, Jan 19: The district Nazim has told the Home Ministry that he will continue issuing permits to traders to bring edibles from Afghanistan as there is no alternative with him till the closure of the Lawari Top, the only land route which connects the Chitral Valley with rest of the country.

In response to an order by the Home and Tribal Affairs department on issuance of permits to local traders, Nazim Shahzad Mohiuddin explained that unless the provincial government didn’t make any alternate arrangements for the supply of livelihoods, he was constrained to issue permits to save the residents from the acute shortage of essential commodities of daily use.

In a letter to the Home Secretary on Jan 18, the Nazim had said that after the closure of the Lawari top the items of daily use run short in the district and the passengers both at Chitral and Peshawar face immense difficulties.

“I had made strenuous efforts by contacting the Foreign Office, MWFP home department and Afghan Consulate based at Peshawar and visited Afghanistan to hold meeting with the Governor of Kunar and got the route opened for Chitralis”, the letter said.

But all these efforts came to naught when the Frontier Corps personnel subjected the passengers to untold physical and mental torture and finally closed the traffic through Afghanistan, said the Nazim.

The Nazim said that due to the uncalled for action of the FC, he made protests and asked the central government to convene a meeting of all the concerned parties i.e Afghan government, Foreign Office, FC, MNA from Chitral and the district Nazim. Annoyed over the wrongdoings, the Nazim said, the FC authorities were levelling charges of smuggling from Afghanistan, which was totally baseless.

“The fact remains that the provision of essential items of daily life is the responsibility of the provincial government, so arrangement for the smooth supply of the items be made and in the absence of it the district government has no option other than allowing the transportation of these items from Afghanistan”, the letter added.