PESHAWAR, April 27: The Dir Kohistan Watch Cell, a youth welfare society for the protection of forest, has demanded of the government to recover Rs190 million forest royalty of Kohistani people from the contractors.

Addressing a news conference here at the Peshawar Press Club, the president of the society, Amir Mohammad, alleged that seven years ago the local timber mafia in connivance with the officials of the NWFP forest department, forest development corporation, and district administration of Dir deprived thousands of Kohistani people of their Rs190 million worth of forest royalty by making fake agreements with contractor.

He said that the affected people of the area took the matter to the local administration, which failed to address the issue. After getting disappointed from the local administration, the residents launched a movement and held a number of protest rallies, observed hunger strike and staged a long march to Peshawar.

As a result, the previous government constituted a judicial inquiry commission headed by Justice Zia-ud-Din Khattak. The commission set up a camp court for 35 days and prepared an inquiry report, which was submitted to the government.

The commission was able to identify all the culprits and asked the district administration to recover Rs190 million from them and distribute it judiciously among the affected people.

But the district administration never complied with the directives except the distribution of a meagre royalty of Rs432,000 in the Kolkot village, and that was done as a political trick just to break the momentum of their movement, he alleged and added, “the officials concerned could not recover the looted money from the timber mafia.”

After the takeover of present regime, the representatives of the affected people held a meeting with the former NWFP governor Mohammad Shafiq and apprised him of the entire situation. The provincial government decided to look into the matter again and set up another inquiry commission headed by Session Judge Hayyat Ali Shah.

He said that the commission also endorsed the recommendations given by the previous body.

“Despite this visible legal and moral victory, the residents of Kohistan could not get their just right,” he added.

He said that the affected people took the issue to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), but failed to get a positive response from it.

He demanded of the government to take notice of the problem and issue orders regarding the payment of royalty to the affected people of Dir-Kohistan.