CHITRAL: The Chitral Scouts personnel on Monday recovered two bodies from under an avalanche in Baroghil valley here.

Herdsmen Shadman Khan and Mirza Jan buried under tons of the snow on Thursday when an avalanche hit the valley.

The two were returning to their village after herding yaks.

A news release issued by the headquarters of the Chitral Scouts here said the bodies of the two had been recovered by the personnel of Chitral Scouts in Chikar area during a specialsearch operation.

The sparsely-populated Baroghil valley remains snow-packed during the winter season, which usually lasts five months forcing the people to stay indoors. Herdsmen leave yaksin the open tograze.

HOTELIERS FLAY GOVT: The owners of hotels in Chitral`s Bumburate valley on Monday criticised the government for not compensating them after the 2015 floods.

They also came down hard on the Tourism Corporation of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for ignoring stakeholders from Chitral during the formulation of tourism policy.The hoteliers met in Kalash valley of Bumburate here on Monday.

The Chitral Chamber of Commerce and Industry organised the meeting, where president of the chamber Sartaj Ahmed Khan and hoteliers, tour operators and the people`s elected representatives were in attendance.

The participants said the government had compensated hoteliers in Swat and other districts of Malakand division after floods played havoc with their assets but ironically, such hotel owners from Chitral were neglected for compensation.

They said the 2015 flashfloods had washed away 70 percent of hotels in Bumburate, the tourist hub in Chitral.

Some participants complained that the TCKP had ignored them and other local stakeholders while formulating tourism policy.

They demanded their issues be properly handled in the tourism policy.

The participants also said the local hotel industry was ready to efficiently manage the likely large influx of tourists following the completion of work on Lowari tunnel project next year.

They called for the building of the capacity of those associated with the tourism industry through specialised training programmes to deal with visitors well.