CHITRAL: The joint forest management committee (JFMC) of Achhulga village of Bumburate has cleared Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf district president Abdul Latif of the charges of his involvement in cutting of forest, saying all this was propaganda against him by his political opponents.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, the JFMC office-bearers, including Abdul Hadi, Mohammad Rafi and Abdur Razaq, said that being stakeholders in the forest of Achhulga village it was their obligation to clear the misgivings about the PTI activist who was being accused of cutting green forest.

They said that three years ago when the forest of Achhulga was marked by the forest department for routine harvesting the residents made a request to the PTI leader, then a contractor, to use his registration to get the contract of harvesting, logging and transportation that he accepted.

They claimed that Mr Latif then had given a power of attorney to one of the community members, Mohammad Farooq, who transferred the contract in his name and the community started work on harvesting marked trees.

They said the work was stopped when the administration expelled labourers from the forest due to security reasons as some forest labourers had been murdered by terrorists in the nearby jungle.

The JFMC members said that harvesting could not be resumed for the next six months, but during this period unknown persons had cut and stolen a number of trees from the compartment of the forest. The forest department authorities imposed a fine on the contractor for cutting green trees in the compartment on the basis of ‘wrong information provided by his opponents’.

They said that the PTI leader had nothing to do with the tree cutting as he had delegated his powers to a community member. Some villagers also attended the press conference to show solidarity with Mr Latif while the attorney holder was also present one the occasion and showed the relevant documents to mediapersons.

Published in Dawn March 2nd , 2015

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