OGHI (Mansehra), Oct 8: As vehicles crawl bumper-to-bumper up the steep road just ahead of Abbottabad, an agitated passenger in the coach we are travelling in remarks: “Since the Oct 8 earthquake, the number of vehicles here has grown dramatically.”

A visit to the part of the earthquake-devastated areas, however, reveals that the post-quake story is one of both corruption and sacrifices. There are people who have lost precious lives and properties and are still suffering and there are those who, in collusion with revenue officials, are making money out of others’ miseries.

M. Khan, a young man from the twin villages of Sherpur and Malakpur, off the Siran river, having two children and a wife to support, says he is jobless. During the conversation, however, he brags that he has sold his car and is leaving for Lahore to buy a new one.

As a social worker with family influence, Mr Khan has been involved in the relief work in his locality. “I have given away 879 cheques in my village of Sherpur. But nobody can say that I have received even a single penny from them,” says the man wearing the traditional jacket over his white shalwar-qameez and black sandals. “I plan to contest the next election for town nazim. Our family has been in politics for a long time.”

But when a cousin of his presses him, he admits that in several other villages, he did play the intermediary and received from Rs5,000 to Rs10,000 on each cheque issued by officials. So far, most of the affected people have received two instalments for the reconstruction of their houses –- one of Rs25,000 and the other Rs75,000. Another instalment of Rs75,000 is due. There are still many who are yet to receive any money. Even if paid, the amount is not sufficient to build an earthquake-proof house while the prices of construction material are skyrocketing and workmen demanding higher than usual wages.

In the Oghi town of Mansehra district, Ali Mohammad who lost his son, Zaheer, when a major part of the Muzaffarabad University collapsed, politely refused to accept a cheque for Rs100,000 as compensation the government issued for lost lives. “My son was a martyr. I cannot receive any money for my late beloved son,” the man is quoted to have told the officials who tried to persuade him to accept the cheque.

People joke about how rich people pulled their cars to a side and stood in queues to seek free rations, foreign blankets and tents though they were not affected by the quake and could afford to buy such things on their own. But people also recall that some people strictly refused to allow anything into their houses.

Mujahid, a 50-year-old bearded man, relaxes on a chair in his under-construction house in an Oghi hamlet along the road leading to Battal, one of the worst-hit areas. “Part of my house had collapsed in the Oct 8 earthquake. When people came to me with cheques,” says the man who has a small business concern in the main Oghi Bazaar: “I told them not to talk to me about compensation. I thank God that not even a chicken of mine was hurt when part of my house collapsed.”