Boroghil Festival scrapping -letter

I would like to draw the attention of the leaders of Chitral towards a recent move of the government to shift the venue of Yak Festival from Broghil valley to Darkhot, Northern Areas. News is in the air that the move was engineered because of the presence of a listening camp of CIA in the area. To people who are familiar with Broghil it sounds really weird as what the innocent people of that remote part of Chitral had to do with War on Terrorism? Given the fact that this was the first time they had grouped together with some local organisations to raise their income slightly. If properly organised and maintained over a certain period of time, this could have been a real source of income for them. Does the govt have any alternative for them?

On the one hand there is no check on cross border movement of Afghan refugees in the mid-western part of NWFP; on the other hand, a festival is banned in the remote part of the province in the name of War on Terror. If this continues to happen this way, days are not far when they will shift Shandur Festival to NAs as well without giving any reason at all. The intelligentsia should raise the issue with the government at least.

Saifuddin
Lahore.