GILGIT: Twelve persons have been sentenced to one year jail with a fine a Rs20,000 each over illegal logging in Diamer district.

According to a press release issued here on Wednesday, the police had arrested the people during an operation supervised by the regional forest officer in Raikot area on Tuesday.

Diamer deputy commissioner Fayyaz Ahmed had ordered the crackdown.

The team later produced them before divisional forest officer, Chilas, Shehzad Alam, who sentenced them to one year imprisonment and fined them Rs20,000 each after a short trial. The raiding team also confiscated illegally cut timber. Deputy commissioner Fayyaz Ahmed said there was zero tolerance policy against deforestation in the district.

He said illegal constructions had also been banned in fairy meadows in the district and that strict legal action would be taken against the violators of the ban.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2022