Ignored demands: Kohistani land owners extend ultimatum by a week

Villagers threaten to stop Dasu Project work, block highway

KOHISTAN: Kohistani land owners on Saturday once again extended their deadline for the government to meet their demands to October 23.

They warned that if the government fails to meet their deadline, they would be compelled to forcibly stop the construction work on Dasu Hydro Power Project DHPP, and block the Karakoram Highway (KKH) by staging a sit in on it.

This was decided at a jirga of local elders and land owners in Barseen area along the KKH. Participants of the jirga expressed their concerns that despite repeated protests and warnings, Water and Power Development (Wapda) authorities have not yet accepted their nine-point charter of demands for which they had set a deadline of October 12.

According to Shamsur Rehman, one of the members of the 80-member action committee of affected villagers, the jirga has decided to serve verbal notices to the contractors, district administration and Wapda authorities that from Saturday to stop all kinds of construction work on the project site without further delay.

“If they fail to stop work by October 23, the land owners would forcibly stop their work and block the KKH in protest,” Rehman said, adding that the responsibility for any subsequent law and order situation in the region would squarely fall on Wapda, central government and the district administration.

Rehman said that survey and construction work in the reservoir area had been suspended partially by land owners on July 12 while Wapda and the local administration had been handed a nine-point charter of demands on August 8. The charter had set a deadline of October 2.

However, since Wapda and the government failed to accept the demands of land owners, the committee deployed eight of its members outside Wapda offices in Barseen who would monitor the movement of officials and contractors and inform other members about developments.

Maulana Sabr Jameel, an elder in the action committee, said that neither Wapda nor the government had accepted their demands forcing them to take to the streets and forcibly stop work on the projects after October 23.

About the demands, he explained that land owners had asked the Wapda to ensure payment of land on the pattern and categorisation of land acquired for the Diamer-Bhasha Dam, compensation of built up property should be based on the present schedule of provincial government while payment against orchards should be made on the rates equal to Darail and Tangir valleys of G-B.

Furthermore, they had demanded that Kohistanis should be hired for building the project and payments at current market rates should be made for land forcibly occupied by the dam authorities.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2016.