Demands: Students protest over deforestation

CHITRAL: Hundreds of students from Ayun took the streets on Friday, demanding of the district government to take action against timber smugglers and to free the people arrested for protesting against deforestation in Chitral. Chanting slogans and holding placards inscribed with slogans against the timber smugglers and the district administration, the students marched the streets despite imposition of Section 144 in the area. They demanded the release of 32 people arrested for protesting against large-scale illegal tree felling in Bamboret and Rambor and annulment of the FIR registered against 80 people for holding the protest. The students demanded that the minister of forest should be jailed for allowing cutting of hundreds of trees in the area, which caused heavy flooding in the low lying area of Ayun.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 17^th, 2012.