ISLAMABAD, Nov 17: Flood victims from Mardan on Friday held a protest demonstration in front of the Parliament, Supreme Court and Prime Minister Secretariat demanding of Prime Minister, Shuakat Aziz, to fulfil his pledge of disbursing Rs50 million compensation among the affected families.

The prime minister had announced the compensation amount for the families of the flood victims during his visit to Mardan Cantonment.

A group of local Nazims, councillors, lawyers, traders and heads of affected families, who protested here, said the central and provincial governments had yet to compensate the families.

They said that Mardan district had suffered Rs20 billion losses in one of the worst floods of its history that played havoc with the lives and property of the citizens on August 5, 2006.

The protesters also demanded a five-year tax holiday for Mardan in order to enable its sinking economy, hit hard by flood, recover.

Led by Mardan Nazim, Himayatullah Mayar, and MNA Attaur-Rehman, the protesters demanded of the Supreme Court to play its due role in making the government announce Mardan as calamity-hit area as more than 54 people were killed there and thousands of houses, shops and business centres were washed away.

“We want justice from the chief justice of Pakistan,” stated a slogan inscribed on a banner being carried by an angry protester.

The protesters said the response of the federal government was step-motherly and the victims felt alienated. Though the prime minister had never dared to even go close to the bridge that collapsed due to flood in Hoti area and killed more than 50 people, the compensation he had announced had given some hopes to the bereaved families.

“Now it seems that the prime minister has forgotten his promise,” said Mayar.

He said that people in the area questioned as to why they should pay taxes to the federal government if it could not even help them in such crisis. He said the poverty in the flood-hit areas stood in sharp contrast to the lush green and costly buildings and roads of Islamabad, where representatives of the people from the rest of the country gathered for doing legislations.

Narrating the ordeal of the students of Girls High School, Shago Yar, Hoti, a protester said that the school was without boundary wall, clean drinking water and latrine and students were at greater risk of waterborne diseases and hepatitis.

He said these girl students were suffering at a time when the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) government in NWFP was claiming to be the sole champion of Islam and humanity.

The protesters said the MMA government had badly failed to respond efficiently to the provincial flood which killed over 142 people and washed away and damaged more than 5,066 houses in 16 districts of NWFP.

Mardan, which is the second big city of NWFP, was under heavy rains and flood during Aug 3-5. The Kalpani stream rose up to its heights and inundated the areas of Fakar Banr, Sarai Korouna, Haji Korouna, Bughdada, Sabzi, Mir Afzal Khan Bazaar, Shahidan Bazaar, Chato Cowk, Sawabi Bazaar,Durranabad, Pirano Dagha, Par Hoti, Toro, Mayar, Gojar Ghari and surrounding localities.

The worst incident was the death of over 50 people in the collapse of the main Par Hoti Bridge on Kalpani stream.