HARIPUR, Aug 19: Members of the tehsil council of Haripur have threatened self-immolation and suspension of Sui gas supply to the district of Abbottabad, if the proposed water supply (gravity flow) scheme on river Dour for Abbottabad was not scrapped forthwith.

The council also adopted a unanimous resolution against the proposed water scheme near Azizabad on Nathiagali Road. The Haripur tehsil council met here on Wednesday with Mohammad Amin Khan Badhora in the chair. The proposed gravity flow water supply scheme in Abbottabad was on the top of the agenda, which witnessed a threadbare discussion.

Raja Zubair Khan in his opening remarks on the scheme termed it conspiracy to deprive the people of Haripur of their legal right over waters from the Dour river. He said that since a vast population of the district was dependent on the Dour river, the proposed project would not only create the worst kind of water scarcity, but also leave more than 200,000 unskilled people jobless.

He also criticised the district nazim Dr Raja Amer Zaman and federal parliamentary secretary on finance MNA Omar Ayub Khan for their alleged bickering over the issue of NOC and urged them to get united for the protection of rights of people of Haripur who according to him voted both of them to the district and national assemblies respectively.

Raja Zubair threatened self-immolation, if the federal government did not abandon this project, which was, according to him, a matter of life and death of the entire district.

Ghulam Jan, Malik Razmat, and Raja Ehtesham said that if the district government shown any reluctance in this regard and went on with its demand for completion of project the people of Haripur would snap Sui gas supply to Abbottabad and block Share Hazara for every kind of traffic between Abbottabad and Haripur.

The Tehsil council, later, adopted a unanimous resolution demanding cancellation of this project and made it clear that the people of Haripur would not allow any such scheme which had disastrous impacts on the demography of the district. The resolution also asked the federal government and JICA not to release funds for this scheme.