CHITRAL: The five-day Kagh Lusht festival, featuring traditional games like polo, tug-of-war, target-shooting, mountain race and a cultural show, ended here on Monday, attracting thousands of people from across Chitral.

People of all ages thronged the green plateau, with women witnessing the event from a distant spot.

Youngsters took special interest in the sporting events on the final day of the festival, which included target-shooting, falconry, tug-of-war and classic football (bampu ghal).

Booni town team won most of the games, including cricket, tug-of-war, bampu ghall and mountain race, played at the village level.

The final of polo was won by the Mastuj subdivision team, while Charun village clinched the football final, target-shooting competition title went to Hussain Zareen.

Chitral Deputy Commissioner Osama Ahmed Warraich, former IGP of Gilgit-Baltistan Syed Tehseen Anwar, local MPAs Syed Sardar Hussain Shah and Salim Khan gave away prizes to the players.

LYNX CAPTURED: Villagers in Mastuj captured a lynx which had killed scores of their goats in the pasture and handed it over to the wildlife department.

A villager, Barkat Ali Jan, told Dawn on phone that a couple of lynx had killed goats, sheep and chickens in the village over the past two years, inflicting financial losses on them. He said that the people chased the wild cat when it was spotted in the village and captured it unhurt.

He said that the number of goats and sheep killed by the lynx rose to dozens during the last two years, adding that the loss of a goat meant a loss of about Rs15,000 for a family.

He said that the community members had approached the divisional forest officer (DFO) of the wildlife department to release the captured lynx in a place far away from the village to save their livestock from it.

He said that the villagers had also asked the wild life department to secure insurance of their livestock which had been facing danger from lynx, snow leopard, wolf and brown bear, but to no avail.

The villagers have asked the wildlife department to pay them compensation for the loss of the cattle heads besides securing insurance of their livestock.

When contacted, DFO Imtiaz Hussain said that they had released the lynx. However, he said that he did not know the place where it was released.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2016