PHC suspends order asking families to leave Chitral

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday suspended the Chitral district administration’s order asking 19 families of Gahirat area to leave the district.

A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Miankhel and Justice Muhammad Ayub Khan suspended the deputy commissioner’s order asking 19 families to leave the district as they were non-nationals.

The court also issued a notice to DC Chitral, district nazim, chief secretary, secretary interior, secretary home to submit replies.

The bench issued the directions in a writ petition filed by Ghulam Haider and 18 other people through their lawyer Mohibullah Terichvi, seeking cancelation of the order and to issue order to Ministry of Interior to restore their Pakistani citizenship.

He submitted before the bench that the families were forcibly expelled from Chitral in 1951. The lawyer argued that these families migrated to Afghanistan and then took refuge there as refugees.

The lawyer said after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, these families returned to their native area in Chitral and applied to the Ministry of Interior for issuance of certificates of Pakistani citizenship.

He said the district administration had issued order to the petitioners to leave the district, saying they were non-nationals.