PESHAWAR: The Shandur festival will be held according to the schedule despite a boycott announced by the Gilgit Baltistan government, officials and sources said.
Chitral’s top administrator said that they were fully prepared to organise the event. “If the G-B people did not participate in the event, then teams from Chitral will play each other,” District Coordination Officer (DCO) Rehmatullah Wazir told The Express Tribune.
Wazir said the G-B side was reluctant to hold talks with anybody except Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti. However, he did not say whether or not talks were scheduled between the two chief ministers.
About the territorial claims over Shandur, the DCO said that a commission set up during the tenure of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf was working it out and both sides should wait for its report.
“The K-P government has decided to organise the event, even if the G-B team refuses to participate in the event,” a source told The Express Tribune. The event will feature polo matches, cultural shows and paragliding competitions. The K-P chief minister and the prime minister are likely to attend the concluding ceremony.
Renowned columnist and author of ‘Wakhan Corridor’, Dr Inayatullah Faizi, who belongs to Laspur village, near Shandur, blamed a certain lobby in Gilgit for territorial claims over Shandur.
“The G-B’s claim is basically the continuation of Indian claims over territories extending to Mastuj,” Faizi told The Express Tribune. He said, “The G-B government wants Shandur to be declared a disputed territory, which is not the case. Shandur is a settled area and part of Chitral.”
Faizi said that the G-B authorities were demanding the removal of the Chitral Scouts post at Shandur and rights of organising the mega sporting event in the region. However, he said the event was more than 200 years old and English rulers started playing polo at Shandur in 1893. It was Shujaul Mulk, the ruler of the princely state of Chitral, who camped in Shandur in 1914 and arranged polo matches, Faizi said.
He said Mulk also invited Gilgit polo team to participate in the event.
Faizi said Major Evelyn Cobb, a British officer, was often credited with starting polo matches in Shandur. Maj Cobb was stationed in Chitral during 1929-1936 and he organised polo matches in moonlit nights in Shandur. These matches were held in the Mas Junali area, which derived its name from these matches as Mas Junali means Moonlit Polo Ground in Khowar language.
There are five to six polo grounds in Shandur and the ground where these games are played today is called Mahron Pal, which means Fairies’ Flowerbed in Balti language.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 6th, 2010.
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