Balakot residents to move apex court for housing project

MANSEHRA: Residents of Balakot have decided to move the apex court against federal and provincial governments, which according to them didn’t release an amount of Rs1 billion for New Balakot City housing project since early 2019.

“We are planning to move a contempt of court petition against the federal government, which didn’t obey the supreme court’s ruling on the rehabilitation of health and education infrastructure and New Balakot City project meant for the settlement of the 2005 earthquake survivors,” Sheeraz Mehmood Quraishi, a social activist, told a grand jirga in Balakot on Monday. The jirga, attended largely amongst others by the residents of red zone of Balakot, demanded through a resolution that the federal government punish those who transferred Rs1.9 billion funds meant for the rehabilitation of Balakot survivor families to Multan (Punjab) by former prime minister Yusuf Raza Gillani.

Sheraz Mehmood Quraishi, on whose writ petition Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar had visited Balakot and later issued the ruling, said they both the federal and provincial governments had failed and now it was a high time that Chief Justice of Pakistan ensures the enforcement of his predecessors’ ruling in letter and spirit. Speaking on occasion, the former president of the district bar association Munir Hussain Lughmani said that over 300 schools and dozens of health facilities could not be rebuilt even 15 years after the devastating earthquake. The jirga also demanded a probe into the alleged embezzlement of funds locally collected for the survivors of Balakot red zone.