CHITRAL: The residents of Ashrait village here have demanded of the government to pay compensation for their land acquired for the construction of approach road of Lowari Tunnel many years ago.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, the member of tehsil council from Ashrait, including Roedar Ahmed Sajid, Mohammad Alam and Ahmed Khan, said that the officials of revenue department had acquired their land for the approach road to the tunnel, but now they were being denied the compensation.

They said that it was a sheer injustice with them as the residents of Ashrait had lost their agricultural fields and trees to the project.

They said that the revenue officials had now declared some of the land acquired for the project as governmentproperty which was unacceptable. They explained that the area right from the tunnel to the village was a private property of the local people and was not a pasture as mentioned by the revenue officials.

NO EYE SPECIALIST: The district headquarters hospital, Chitral, is without eye specialist for the last six months.

The post fell vacant after the retirement of the incumbent district specialist in January this year and the patients from the district had no option, but to go to Peshawar for eye treatment.

When contacted, an official of the hospital said that over a dozen posts of district specialists were vacant since long which included two posts each of cardiology and orthopaedics and one each of surgery, medicine, gynaecology, neurology, paediatrics, chest and anesthesia.

He said that the posts of psychiatrist and physiotherapy were also vacant and the patients were being referred to hospitals in Peshawar.