Sunday, November 2, 2008

Road closure puts Chitralis in a bind

Dawn, December 26, 2007


By Zar Alam Khan

ISLAMABAD: A crisis of sorts has gripped Chitral
as the Afghan government has not yet allowed the stranded
people of the valley to use its territory to travel to and
from the district after the closure of the Lowari Pass on
December 19.
When a few people crossed the Nawa Pass to travel through
the Kunar province of Afghanistan to Chitral from Peshawar,
the Afghan authorities detained them for a couple of days. Later,
they were released after intervention of some notables of
Chitral.
The district remains completely cut off from rest of the
country for full four months from December to April every year
after the 10,500-foot-high Lowari Pass closes for all types
of traffic due to hundreds of feet deep snow. The people of
the district use the Kunar-Nawa pass route to reach other parts
of the country during the period. Instead of any bilateral
agreement between the two governments, local notables make
temporary arrangements by holding talks with the Afghan
provincial authorities on a yearly basis to let the people
of Chitral to travel on the treacherous route through the
neighbouring Afghan province.
People of the district complained that Pakistan had always
gone an extra mile in ensuring transit trade facilities to
Afghanistan but the latter was even not ready to allow ambulance
vehicles carrying patients to and from the landlocked district
to use its territory.
They demanded that the federal government should take up the
issue with Afghanistan and get a right of way agreement signed
with Kabul, so that the people of Chitral used the Afghan
territory without any hindrance in winter till the completion
of the Lowari tunnel.

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