CHITRAL: The Kalash are keeping the celebrations of Chitramas, a winter festival, low-key to express solidarity with the families, who lost members, especially children, in the Dec 16 Peshawar school attack.

Kalash leader Luke Rehmat told Dawn from the Bumburate valley on Saturday that the weeklong festival being marked in line with Kalash calendar would continue until tomorrow (Monday).

He said the sensitive Kalash people were distressed by the massacre of schoolchildren.

Rehmat said the carnage had dampened the delights of the festival as the Kalash were literally in tears over the brutal killing of children by militants.

He said the Kalash gave children a lot of love and affection in line with their traditions.

The Kalash leader said boys and girls had taken out torch-bearing processions, which ended in their respective community dancing halls, locally known as jastakhan, where they sang and danced throughout the night.

He said it was the only festival of the community during which non-Kalash people were not allowed to enter their houses and jastakhans.

`The Kalash people believe presence of outsiders during Chitramas celebrations will pollute their spirituality,` he said.

C O R R U P T I O N ALLEGED: Local contractors have accused the Local Council Board official of being corrupt.

Abul Lais Khan Ramdasi and Jehanzeb told reporters here that the government had introduced e-tendering to check corruption but the corrupt officials had failed it by seeking bribe from contractors for benefiting from it.

They said they were supposed to download tender forms from the LCB website free of charge but the LCB officials illegally sought Rs1,000 each for the password to have access to the facility.

The contractors said they paid registration fee to LCB for enlistment with the local government department and therefore, they were entitled to get the password free of charge.

They said the government`s claim to eliminate corruption from the tendering process was false as corrupt officials continued to rule the roost.

The contractors said earlier, they had to pay Rs200 to Rs300 to the relevant clerk in Chitral office to secure tender document but currently, they paid Rs1,000 to the clerk concerned at the LCB Peshawar offices for password.

They demanded the relevant authorities to step in without delay to ease their misery.