TIMERGARA: Road construction and earth leveling machinery worth millions of rupees has been rusting away in front of the Timergara tehsil municipal administration’s office for decades.

Residents and social activists demanded of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to make use of the costly machinery.

Sources told Dawn a road roller, compressing machine, bulldozers, tractors and jeeps had been rusting away for want of use. They said the machinery was purchased between 1979 and 1998 for the then Lower Dir district council. After the abolishment of the district councils the machinery was handed over to the rural development department (RDD), Lower Dir, which was defunct in 2000 after devolution plan of the retired Gen Musharraf regime.

After the abolishment of RDD the machinery had been handed over to the Timergara tehsil municipal administration, they explained. The sources said the machinery had not been used for years, adding it was rented out for some time to carry out road construction, but now it had been dumped in the open.

Meanwhile, Timergara Tehsil Nazim Riaz Mohammad told Dawn that the machinery remained the property of the district council until 1998 and then the RDD until 2000. “We are only the custodians of this asset, not the owners,” the nazim said, adding he had written to the relevant authorities either to auction the machinery or carry out its proper repairs. He said the Timergara TMA could not afford even its repair cost.

ATROCITIES AGAINST ROHINGYA MUSLIMS: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Sirajul Haq on Sunday urged the international community to take notice of the Rohingya Muslims’ persecution in Myanmar.

Addressing an Eid Milan party in his native Samarbagh village, the JI chief said Rohingyas had been facing horrific rapes, forced disappearances, massacres and atrocities at the hands of Burmese army. He expressed anger over the ‘criminal silence’ of the UN and OIC in that regard.

He announced the JI would organise a countrywide protest in favour of the Burmese Muslims on Sept 7 and a long march from Mansoora Lahore to Islamabad on Sept 11.

Mr Haq said Malakand division was a tourist spot and the federal government should include it in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2017