September 22, 2006	Friday	Sha'aban 28, 1427

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ATTOCK, Sept 21: The Aashiana rehabilitation centre at Hattian was closed permanently after the government handed over all the remaining earthquake survivors to the representatives of Azad Kashmir and NWFP governments on Wednesday evening.

Sources said 115 earthquake survivors including children and women were handed over to the representatives of the said governments under the supervision of ministry of social welfare and the Attock district administration.

The special rehabilitation camp was established at the vacant Ghazi Barotha

colony under the joint supervision of Khubaib Foundation (KF) and the federal ministry of social welfare with the shifting of 800 displaced women and orphan children there after the October 8 earthquake.

About Rs25 million expenditure was shown in the last eight months on provision of education, health, food and sanitation facilities to the victims, the sources said.

The centre remained in the limelight and many national and foreign dignitaries including President General Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the daughter of Qatar’s Emir and wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited the facility.

It was earlier declared a permanent rehabilitation camp for the earthquake survivors. But differences surfaced between the ministry and the NGO over the sharing of funds.

Later the situation deteriorated when the ministry refused to pay the claim of Rs50 million to the NGO and asked the Pakistan Baitul Maal to take over the administrative charge of the centre.

The officials of the ministry and the NGO clashed when the latter refused to close down the centre and hand over the earthquake affected orphans and children to SOS on September 4.

Officials of the ministry and the NGO registered cases against each other then following day.

Meanwhile, a police team led by DSP Attock Chaudhry Abdul Ghaffar raided the head office of Khubaib Foundation in Islamabad on Wednesday evening to arrest its chairman and his brother in two different cases registered with the Hazro police.

However, none of them was present at the office.

DPO Attock Zafar Iqbal Awan said both the accused had been asked to appear before the police voluntarily.

He refuted the reports that police were being pressured by some ministry officials in the case.

When asked why the police had not taken similar action on the complaint of the chairman KF as he had also levelled similar allegations against the ministry official, the DPO said it was under consideration.