CHITRAL: A member of district council has accused the officials of wildlife department of hunting Kashmir Markhor in Chitral Gol National Park.

Riaz Ahmed Dewan Begi told the session of the district council here on Wednesday that hunting of animals and cutting of green wood were banned in a national park.

He said that a markhor was hunted in the national park and the officials of wild life department reportedly shared the meat of the illegally hunted animal.

The councillor demanded a high level probe into the incident to bring to book the culprits, who hunted markhor in the area of national park.

Chaired by its convener Maulana Abdul Shakoor, the house also took up the issue of the mysterious death of four Chitrali girls wedded outside the district in a short span of six months and demanded of the government to investigate it.

Mufti Mehmoodul Hassan, Mohammad Yaqub and Haji Sher Mohammad said that the girls from Chitral married in the down districts met the tragic end of mysterious death, which always remained untraced. “The coffins of four Chitrali girls should give a wakeup call to all of us,” they added.

They said that a proper mechanism should be put in place to check the credentials of the men, who came to Chitral for marrying a girl.

They said that the middlemen, who arranged such matches, should be discouraged.

A resolution was passed later on unanimously to demand of the government to extend all types of assistance and help to a local social organisation, Anjuman-i-Dawat-o-Azeemat as its members strived to check dubious types of marriages of Chitrali girls with outsider men by carrying out proper verification at private level.

The members of the house expressed resentment over the absence of the officers of different government departments devolved to the district government. They said that not a single officer bothered to attend the session of the council during the last three days.

“It is tantamount to mockery of the house,” they added.

Maulana Abdul Shakoor, giving his ruling on the issue, said that salaries of an officer would be deducted for the day of his or her absence from the session of council in future so that their attendance could be ensured.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2017