CHITRAL: The
government is being criticised here for failing to send any high-ranking
official to offer condolences to the families that lost members during
the recent cross-border attacks by the militants on security posts in
Chitral.
Government officials have conceded the loss of 36 security personnel in the coordinated attacks on August 27 on seven border security posts in Chitral’s Drosh tehsil by Afghanistan-based Pakistani militants affiliated to the Malakand division chapter of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Meanwhile, a social and political figure of Chitral and former assistant commissioner Sardar Mohammad expressed concern over the killings of the soldiers and policemen and termed it as a security lapse.
To substantiate his claim, he said except the Mirkhani, Dumail and Nisar posts that were built during the British era, all those six pickets that were attacked had been established in makeshift structures.
He said the government received hefty funds to combat militants but it was unfortunate that there were no concrete bunkers in this sensitive area vulnerable to attacks. As an afterthought the security has been beefed up in all sensitive areas in Chitral district in the wake of the cross-border raid by the militants, official sources said on Monday.
The sources said that the security in Chitral city, headquarters of the Chitral Scouts, Police Lines and other government installations was raised to prevent the militants from staging another attack.
Meanwhile, leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami came down hard on the Defence Ministry and said that it had not made adequate arrangements due to which the security forces suffered casualties during the attack.
Addressing a protest rally, JI leader Maulana Sher Aziz, former district Nazim Haji Maghfirat Shah, Niaz A Niazi and others said the attack on the security forces was the failure of the Defence Ministry.
They said that no high-ranking official of the federal government or provincial government visited Chitral to condole with the bereaved families of the fallen soldiers.