CHITRAL: Local traders have threatened to come onto the streets if the government doesn’t allow the stranded trucks loaded with food items to pass through the Lowari tunnel in two days.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, the local trader’s body president Habib Hussain Mughal, general secretary Manzur Qadir and treasurer Mir Swat Khan and others said that the trucks had been stopped on the Dir side of the tunnel for the last two weeks.

They said that the district was left with only three days stock of daily use items, but the National Highway Authority was still not allowing trucks to proceed further.

The traders’ leaders said that the situation would take a turn for the worst once the commodities ran out completely. They criticised the government for not allowing the people of Chitral to use Lowari tunnel which was the only route to connect the district with rest of the country.

The leaders of the traders community said that the goods loaded in the trucks had started rotting up for which they would sue the relevant NHA officers in court of law to make up for the losses.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2015

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