March 13, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 9, 1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

PESHAWAR, March 12: Some 100 residents of Chitral, who left Peshawar for home in a motorcade three days back via Kunar province in Afghanistan, are feared to have gone missing.

Speaking at a protest gathering outside the Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday, Chitral Youth Welfare Organization president Siddique Amin claimed that some 125 Chitralis had left Peshawar for home on Sunday. When their motorcade reached near Chakan Sarai in Kunar, a group of Afghan men stopped them and beat them up for using the Afghan territory, he added.

He said 25 of them managed to reach Peshawar but the rest were missing.

Mr Amin criticized the federal government for what he called its pathetic attitude towards the Chitral residents, who are at the mercy of weather during winter. “Our people are stranded in Peshawar and they have no means to reach back their homes.”

The protesters carried banners and placards inscribed with slogans against the PIA management, federal government and for an early construction of the Lawari tunnel and travel protection in Kunar.

They warned that if the missing people were not recovered they would not allow 18,000 Afghan refugees living in Chitral to stay even for a day in their area.