IDPs' strike in Gojal/Hunza enters fifth day
PT Report
Aliabad, May 18: Assistant Commissioner of Hunza, Momin Jan, has said that verification of 445 lake affected households of Gojal Valley has been completed while a committee has been formed to expeditiously process the remaining. He said this while talking to media here. A large number of stranded commuters had gathered in front of the AC’s office to register their protest against delays in resolution of the issues of IDPs which has resulted in closure of boat service in the dammed Hunza River.
In the meanwhile, negotiations between the district administration and IDPs failed for the second consecutive day. The IDPs have demanded that a high profile government official should visit the region and distribute the 600,000 rupees cheques among all the 457 listed households in one go.
The Gojal Disaster Management Committee has, reportedly, met in Sost and demanded handing over of the spillway expansion project to the Chinese firm. According to information received here, the committee has expressed dissatisfaction over the progress of Frontier Works Organization, which has been working to widen spillway of the dammed river for the past 15 months.
According to eye-witnesses, the FWO has increased pace of expansion work at the spillway and they were seen working late into the night a couple of days back.
Suspension of the boat service has resulted in loss of tens of millions of rupees, apart from creating a lot of trouble for commuters who are stranded at both sides of the dammed river.
The protesters assembled at Shishkat and Gulmit have vowed to continue the strike indefinitely till all their demands were fulfilled.
all the responsible people of the local govt are playing games with the people of gojal… what ever they are saying that is totally frade and they are laiers.
they are just buttering the peple of gojal. i must sujjest our people to come together and show your strength, and tell the currpt govt that we can snatch our rights from them..
long live gojal.
its suggested if the strike should made in gilgit , hunza and all the places of pakistan where Gojali living because government knows that we cant do anything at the lake when we are blocking the boat services. if we look at the whole situation of the lake disaster only the residance and the studants of the area are suffering allot rest the migrated people who are settee in other parts of Pakistan or living abroad they sont feel that much the disaster and by this way only poor people and helpless people remain in the gojal and all well educated and leaders are out of the area that’s the great phenomena for us. the priorities are changed so a poor farmer feel this disaster more then the educated one now this is the responsibility of our educated people to provide helping hands to our people and make the government to give the right to the Gojal people
fari USA
Can you publish the list of affectees? The list seems a bit too long for me..