MUZAFFARABAD, Dec 12: An AJK lawmaker belonging to main opposition People’s Party (PPAJK) on Tuesday accused the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) and its affiliate in the AJK, State Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (Serra), of making false claims about the rehabilitation of survivors.

"Official electronic media are constantly propagating that survivors in Muzaffarabad have been provided with accommodation along with other facilities in education and health care sectors. But practically the situation on the ground is still bad. The claims are nothing but a pack of lies," said MLA Mohammad Hanif Awan at a news conference here on Tuesday.

He said earthquake victims in Muzaffarabad had been hearing since long that 5000 shelters, pledged by Saudi Arabia, would be provided to them. But, he regretted, some vested interests were creating hurdles in the timely distribution of these shelters.

"I wonder if Erra, Serra and (AJK) minister for reconstruction are waiting for more deaths (of homeless survivors) because of the biting cold," he said, warning authorities that they would be held responsible for any such mishap.

Mr Awan demanded that all 5000 shelters must be distributed within Muzaffarabad and any attempt to distribute them in other parts of the AJK would be strongly resisted.

"Don't rub salt into the wounds of survivors in this ruined capital like you did during distribution of the compensation money,” the PPAJK lawmaker said. “Patience always has limits,” he declared.

Mr Awan also announced that if the shelters were not provided within 15 days, he would write to the United Nations on behalf of the hardest hit people of Muzaffarabad.

"It's not a political but purely humanitarian issue. Authorities can hate me but they have no right to punish my electorates for that," he said.

In reply to a question, he said he would appreciate the government for its good deeds only because he did not believe in doing politics over graves of the dead.

Mr Awan lamented that the AJK capital's only operational health care centre -- Abbas Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) -- was overburdened but there had been no progress with regard to the reconstruction of another hospital on the site of the flattened CMH.

Without directly naming the army, he said it had earlier taken possession of the US mobile surgical hospital's equipment and now the equipment of a Cuban field hospital awaited the same fate.He alleged that different precious things such as generators, top quality tents, blankets and mobile phones donated by different countries, multi-national companies and affluent individuals after the earthquake did not make their way to the quake-hit areas.

Most of such things, he alleged, disappeared from the Islamabad airport and whatever was left there did not reach the genuinely-affected people.