Environmentalist threatens hunger strike against tree cutting
ABBOTTABAD: Known environmentalist Mahmood Aslam has threatened to go on hunger strike till death outside the National Assembly if the relevant authorities failed to stop the cutting of trees in the city in the name of development.
Talking to reporters here on Tuesday, he claimed that the Cantonment Board Abbottabad had no right to uproot hundreds of trees and destroy the greenbelt for building shops near the Abbottabad Christian School and FG high schools for boys and girls.
He said a local leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was also planning to build another multi-storey plaza in the residential area in violation of the Cantonment Board laws. He said he had challenged the construction of both the plazas in the court of law. He said the plazas were being built on the lush greenbelt and would denude Abbottabad of its natural beauty.
Mahmood Aslam claimed that under the law the Cantonment Board was required to consult the people before undertaking any major project. Showing the topographic map of Abbottabad made in 1868, he said the Cantonment Board officials had refused to accept the authenticity of the master map of Abbottabad drawn by the Revenue Department. He recalled that the Ministry of Defence had issued a policy letter on May 24, 1989 that no commercial plazas should be built in the residential areas in the Abbottabad Cantonment.
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