On Friday, residents of Dubair and Ranowalia in the Lower Kohistan district blocked the Karakoram Highway to protest Wapda’s failure to honor a 2022 agreement for road reconstruction and water supply. The closure disrupted travel between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan, causing significant inconvenience.
Former provincial minister Malik Aurangzeb addressed the protesters in Dubair, emphasizing that despite an agreement signed by the Wapda chairman in a jirga two years ago to reconstruct 28km of Dubair Road and 6km of Ranowali Road, and to supply potable water, no progress had been made. He criticized both Wapda and the government for not addressing the residents’ grievances despite their ongoing protests.
Malik Salahuddin, another speaker, highlighted the Wapda chairman’s promise to rebuild the roads and rehabilitate drinking water schemes damaged by flash floods with World Bank assistance, which has yet to be fulfilled. Chairman of the Dubair Bala village council, Juma Shah Jallali, demanded that Wapda ensure the safety of people downstream from the Dubair Khawar hydropower project.
The protesters dispersed after three hours, reopening the highway to traffic.
Controversy Surrounds JUI-F District Elections
In another development, a group led by former MPA Mufti Kifayatullah has challenged the recent elections for Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F) district emir and general secretary posts. In a letter to the chairman of the JUI-F’s intra-party election committee, Maulana Attaullah Haq Darwash, Qazi Habibur Rehman, a candidate for district emir, claimed electoral discrepancies, including the unfair election of former senator Hidayatullah Shah and Maulana Nasir Mehmood unopposed.
Rehman, the elder brother of Mufti Kifayatullah, alleged that the number of ballot papers issued surged suspiciously from 900 to over 1,400, calling for the cancellation of the results and a fresh, fair electoral process.
