Experts favour IDPs’ repatriation in early Aug

GILGIT: Experts have suggested that the government should begin repatriating the internally displaced persons (IDPs) of the Attabad Lake in the first week of August.

In a meeting chaired by the Gilgit-Baltistan chief minister, experts said that the lake had stabilised and the government should go ahead with the task.

Sources said that participants of the meeting also decided that bridges that were removed as precautions for flashfloods would be re-built. As many as 10 bridges were removed in May, all of which were for villages downstream on the Hunza-Nagar River.

Meanwhile, Gilgit-Baltistan Speaker Wazir Baig has put his weight behind the victims of the Attabad landslide lake, asking the government to increase their compensation package.

“An amount of Rs 600,000 is not enough for a family to purchase a piece of land and construct a house on it,” Baig told reporters on Saturday, adding that protests were the democratic right of the troubled people of Attabad.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 12^th, 2010.