CHITRAL
The residents of far flung village of Arandu here on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, indiscriminate of their political, religious or any other affiliation on Thursday staged a peaceful demonstration and Jirga and demanded of the government to provide them basic amenities.
The village is situated on the banks of Landai Sin River just above its confluence with the Kunar River and lies on the border with Kunar Province, Afghanistan.
Speaking on the occasion Nazim Abdul Majeed and local elders said that UC Arundu has a total population of 25000 individuals in five village councils and are forced to live like in the stone age in this era of technology and advancement.
He recalled that the valley was affected and destroyed many times in past due to Russain and US bombardment in Afghanistan adding that even Russian warships also bombed this town in which many people were martyred and several houses were demolished.
The people of the valley have played the role of a front line force in war against terror but the government did not pay any attention to development of the area despite sacrifices of the people.
He said the construction of Arundu road started some time ago but it was left unfinished and still 32 km of the road was unpaved. Similarly, there was no healthcare facility in the valley and the only primary health center which was upgraded in 2009 as Rural Health Center (RHC) but lacks basic facilities of treatment as no doctor visits the area in two months.
He deplored that one local medical technician was running the entire health centre and examines the patients, adding that despite repeated complaints and requests the provincial government and district government did not take any notice and resolve the issue.
Similarly, he pointed out that the number of teachers at the high school of Arundu was very less, while the higher secondary school was closed a long time ago.
He said that when the issue was taken up with District Education Officer Mehmood Ghaznavi he could not meet them due to meetings at Peshawar while the Deputy Education Officer Shahid Hussain said that there were only 244 students in Arundu High School with fifteen teachers.
The Nazim said that the area was deprived of mobile phone and internet service in this age of technology when students were getting online education across the globe, the students Arundu were deprived of this basic facility and disconnected from the rest of the country and the world.
He pointed out that there was a mobile phone tower in Afghanistan across Arundu and not only the people living here but also government employees use the mobile phone SIM of Afghanistan due to which millions of rupees of income goes to Afghanistan.
There is no drinking water scheme for the area, he said and added that the Public Health Engineering department of KP government had embezzled millions of rupees in just official papers and there was nothing on the ground.
On this occasion, the speakers also thanked the Pakistan Army, which had constructed a children’s park in Arundu and continues to cooperate with the people in other works.
The speakers criticised KP forest department for not recruiting the local people on merit to protect the forest areas.
