Dubair jirga announces renewed protest over delayed road project

MANSEHRA: Elders and residents in Lower Kohistan’s Dubair Valley have decided to restart their protest campaign over what they described as long-standing official neglect, including delays in rebuilding a key road damaged in the 2022 floods.

A jirga held in the valley recently agreed unanimously to resume a sit-in that had continued for two months earlier this year at the local hydropower project site. According to participants, the gathering was attended by elders and young residents who demanded continuation of what they called a peaceful struggle against deprivation in the area.

Speakers at the jirga recalled the August 2022 incident in Sangai village when four men were swept away by floodwater while waiting for rescue on a rock surrounded by a swollen stream. They said the flooding, along with the opening of spillways at the Dubair hydropower dam, also destroyed the riverside track linking Dubair and Ranowalia to the Karakoram Highway.

Local elder Malik Salaudden Khan told the jirga that residents had staged a sit-in for two months seeking reconstruction of the 22-kilometre Dubair-Ranowali road, but cases were registered against them under anti-terrorism laws. He said people in Dubair and other parts of Lower Kohistan continued to face loss of life and property during the monsoon season, adding that three people were killed and many others injured in the first spell of rains earlier this month. He also said passengers, including women and children, as well as truckers and motorists, remained stranded on the Karakoram Highway for three straight days.

He urged widening and reconstruction of the Karakoram Highway to ensure safer travel for passengers heading to Gilgit-Baltistan and other parts of the country, noting that the route carries traffic between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan when the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad Road through Kaghan Valley is closed in winter.

Referring to the earlier protest, Mr Khan said it had been suspended after local MNA and chairman of the Wapda parliamentary committee in the National Assembly Mohammad Idrees assured the jirga that tenders for the Dubair-Ranowali road would be completed within 45 days, but the work had still not moved forward.

Another jirga member said that in summer, when water levels rise in the local stream or in the spillways of the Dubair Khawar power dam, students are unable to attend school and residents cannot move food and other essential goods for weeks.

Cases and compensation claim

Dubair village council chairman Juma Shah Jallali, one of 49 protesters booked under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, told the jirga that demonstrators were facing both criminal proceedings and a damages claim of Rs360 million.

Mr Jallali said Wapda had released Rs500 million and acquired about 700 kanals of land for blacktopping the Dubair-Ranowali road, but the project had yet to begin. He said this had left residents dependent on four-wheel-drive vehicles to travel on the dangerous track left damaged by floods. He also urged the jirga to take up the reconstruction of schools and health centres washed away in the 2022 floods, saying their destruction had deprived local people of education and healthcare services.

The jirga ended by announcing that after Eid it would resume the sit-in, divert the stream’s watercourse and stop power generation if the district administration did not start work on the Dubair-Ranowali road, for which land had already been acquired and funds released by Wapda.

Administration response

Deputy Commissioner Tariq Mehmood also met Dubair jirga elders and told them the district administration was trying to complete the tendering process and start work on the road at the earliest.

He said the terms of the 2022 agreement signed by the Wapda chairman in the presence of Federal Minister Amir Muqam were binding on the administration, and added that the Hazara commissioner had directed the relevant departments to complete the process for execution of the project.

Mr Mehmood also told the jirga that the administration was working on issues related to roads, schools and healthcare not only in Dubair and Ranowali but across the district. He said a team led by the additional deputy commissioner had visited Dubair Valley and reviewed reopening of the route damaged in the 2022 floods, adding that the administration would keep the track operational until the 22-km Dubair-Ranowali road was fully blacktopped.