MANSEHRA: Religious figures on Sunday refuted reports that they were against working of non-government organisations, particularly their women staffers, in Kohistan region.

“We are law-abiding citizens and have never hurled threats on NGOs and their women staffers. We have always welcomed them on our soil,” Maulana Kareem Dad, chairman of Muttahida Kohistan Ulema Jirga, told Dawn.

He said he was also the chairman of Lower Kohistan’s reconciliation committee that had been cooperating with NGOs for decades.

“An NGO, Pak Mission Society, which is run by non-Muslims, has been working in the area since 2010, and we have been taking our women patients to its health facility,” Kareem Dad said.

However, he said according to rules set by their predecessors the NGOs working in Kohistan would neither preach any religion nor challenge local traditions.

“We don’t want women staffers of NGOs to roam in our streets and approach our women along with their male counterparts,” he said, adding NGO women should be stationed at their offices.

Kareem Dad claimed local clerics and people were great admirers of services being rendered by national and international NGOs since the devastating earthquake of 2005 and other natural disasters.

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2023