SWAT: People from various walks of life, including elders, here have vowed to resist the construction of Phase-II of Swat Expressway on their agricultural land and suggested to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government that it should be built along the Swat River on its banks.

They said this in a declaration presented in a jirga of elders and political activists from across Swat district held on Monday evening. The session was held under the auspices of Swat Qaumi Jirga to discuss issues, including the recent delimitation of a constituency, restoration of separate constitutional status of Malakand division and construction of the Swat Expressway Phase-II.

Swat Qaumi Jirga leader Abdul Qahar Khan headed the jirga while elders and political leaders of different parties, including Mukhtar Khan Yousafzai, Sher Shah Khan, Abdul Jabbar, Haji Zahid Khan, Ahmad Shah Khan, Khurshid Kaka Ji, Dr Abdul Basir, Zubair Torwali and many others, also spoke on the occasion.

Shows concern over forest fires

The speakers demanded restoration of the former constitutional status of Malakand division and claimed that the abolition of constitutional status (Pata) of the Malakand division in 2018 had been implemented in an unconstitutional manner.

They said that ‘capturing’ the individual and collective property of local people for Kalam Cricket Stadium was questionable, suggesting a reasonable market rate be given by the government to get the required land.

The leaders also expressed concern over recurrence of mysterious forest fires and the non-professional arrangements to extinguish the fires. They demanded that a proper judicial inquiry must be launched to investigate the causes of fire incidents.

The declaration of the jirga session was unanimously approved. The participants said that all the government buildings, including educational and health institutions, must be vacated and steps for construction and development of tourist areas of Swat should be taken on the basis of lease principles.

They said that a legal ban should be imposed on the sale of land to non-indigenous people to protect the ownership of the Swat lands.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2022