KARAK: The residents of Nashpa block, where oil and gas exploration activities are underway, blocked the road leading to the oilfield on Thursday to protest against delay in construction of link roads of their villages and provision of basic facilities.

They demanded that the roads linking their localities with the Indus Highway should be constructed. The protesters led by Daulat Mir, president of Nashpa Ittehad, also staged a sitin outside the Nashpa plant against the oil and gas exploration companies.

The protesters said that they were still living in the stone age and the residents of the mountainous areas had no road access to the district headquarters. They said that a road had been approved by the oil and gas companies to the area, but the contractor lef t the road work halfway which had added to miseries of the people.

They said that the residents were deprived of all basic needs though there area was giving millions of rupees revenue to the country in the shape of oil and gas. Assistant Commissioner, Karak, Ataul Munam and DSP headquarters Mohammad Ismail negotiated with the protesters and assured them that their genuine problems would be resolved.

After the assurance, the protestors dispersed peacefully.

RULERS CRITICISED: Jamaat-i-Islami provincial chief Prof Mohammad Ibrahim has criticised the rulers for following policies dictated by America. He said that owing to wrong policies the country had been brought to the brink of destruction.

Prof Ibrahim said this while addressing a gathering of party workers at a private school in Mithakhel in connection with `Eid Milan` party here on Thursday.

The JI leader said that rulers of the Muslim world were not truly representing sentiments of the ummah. He said that there were 157 Muslim countries on the globe, but there was internal rift and disunity among them which provided opportunity to the West to hatch conspiracies against them. He stated that if the Muslim world exhibited unity the miseries of ummah could come to an end. He suggested that children of those Afghanis who had been living in Pakistan for the last 30 years should be given Pakistani nationality.Correspondent