CHITRAL: Three persons died and four sustained injuries while repairing pipelines running over the River Chitral in Mori Payeen village, 30km away from here, on Saturday evening.

Nabi Khan, an eyewitness, told Dawn that the incident occurred when one of the pipes collapsed while seven villagers were standing over it as a result of which all of them fell into the river.

He said that four of the seven were rescued while the three others i.e. Wasiullah, Afsaruddin and Ina­yatur Rahman were drowned in the river. The body of Inayat could not be retrieved from the river.

Later on, the villagers blocked the Booni Road, which was continuing till the filing of this report, to lodge their protest against the government which, they alleged, had failed to restore the water supply scheme which had been washed away by a flood a month earlier.

The villagers were demanding the resignation of chief minister and the elected representatives of Chitral including MNA, MPA and district nazim.

The village gets its drinking as well as irrigation water from the Golen Valley situated on the other side of the river through a siphon system which was washed away on July 7 when the valley was hit by a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) and ever since the village of more than 300 households has been without water.

The villagers complained that the government paid no heed to their frantic calls and did nothing to restore the water supply scheme.

They also said that Rescue 1122 staff reached the spot three hours late after the incident and they could have saved at least one of the dead persons.

District Nazim Maghfirat Shah criticised the government for its negligence and said that the villagers were right in their protest while the provincial government remained totally indifferent to their troubles.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2019