CHITRAL, Nov 9: The residents of Ayun village on Friday deferred their protest programme for a week to give the administration more time to release the villagers arrested for protesting against felling of local forest by the timber mafia.

The residents had planned to launch protest drive from Friday, but they voluntarily postponed their plan after the district administration imposed section 144 to avoid any untoward incident.

Leaders of various political parties who had thronged the village to lead the protest programme against the government included former district nazim Maghfirat Shah, former tehsil nazim Mastuj Shahzada Sikandarul Mulk, former tehsil nazim Chitral Sartaj Ahmed Khan and president of Qaumi Watan Party Abdul Wali advocate.

They said the people of Ayun were peace loving and law abiding and that was why they postponed their activities to avoid the violation of section 144.

They said the local people were being harassed by the administration and police by implicating them in false cases and sending them behind bars for what they said raising voice to save their forest from being denuded by timber mafia.

Meanwhile, a heavy contingent of police had also been dispatched to avoid any untoward situation in the village.

PPP REORGANISATION: The leaders of People’s Amn Committee, Chitral have demanded of the provincial and central leadership of Pakistan People’s Party to reorganise the party in the district to save it from defeat in the forthcoming general elections.

Addressing a press conference on Friday, Aneesud Din, Ghairat Ullah, Abdul Nawaz Khan, Ahmed Jan and others said the district leadership had utterly failed to organise the party.

They said looters and opportunists had hijacked the party and were using it for their personal whims while ignoring the sincere and devoted workers.

They asked the party leadership to award ticket to the workers from Chitral town as no person had ever been nominated for the national or provincial assembly seats from this area.