PESHAWAR, April 10: Political, literary and welfare organisations of Chitral have demanded of the government to announce a relief package for the residents of the rain-hit areas of the district, where avalanches and torrential rains have swept away infrastructure and killed over 70 people.

Speaking at a joint news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Tuesday, Chitral Youth Organisation president Sadiq Amin, Tehrik-i-Insaf district president Abdul Latif and Anjuman Taraqqi Khawar president Qazi Inayat Jalil criticised the attitude of the president, prime minister and NWFP chief minister who, according to them, had not visited the calamity-hit district where rains had wiped out at least two villages.

They said that injured men and women had themselves recovered dead bodies from the debris of their houses. Those in power kept boasting that the treasury was full of foreign exchange reserves but the people were dying of hunger and lack of medicines.

They said that landslides had eroded 400km of roads across the district. The people were doing without electricity for the last two weeks.

They said that instead of dispatching relief goods and restoring infrastructure the federal government was busy in hoodwinking residents.

They claimed that all link roads were closed and the people were left with no option but to confine themselves to their villages where they were facing an acute shortage of food items.

They added that Washich village, whose residents had played a “great role” against Soviet Union troops during 1979, was badly hit by rains but the government had yet to take any steps for the early rehabilitation of dislocated people.