PESHAWAR, Dec 27: Former MNA from Chitral Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali on Thursday moved the Peshawar High Court to keep the Lowari tunnel open for traffic throughout the week.

Recently, NHA had decided to open Lowari tunnel, which connects Chitral with the rest of the province, for passenger vehicles on three alternate days of the week due to the construction work.

Under the decision, the tunnel remains open from 12 noon to 5:30pm on every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

In the petition, Maulana Chitrali, a central leader of Jamaat-i-Islami, prayed the court to declare the four-day closure of Lowari tunnel by NHA illegal and unconstitutional.He said Chitral’s current population was around 600,000 and Lowari tunnel was the only land route available to them during the winter season for traveling to other parts of the country.

The petitioner said the four-day closure of the tunnel had stressed out the patients needed to be shifted to Peshawar and other cities for emergency treatment, while the transportation of dead bodies to and from Chitral also suffered.

He also complained that the situation had subjected transporters to great hardships as they had to use the tunnel for the movement of food and edibles. Maulana Chitrali said the opening of the tunnel for three days a week and that, too, for a few hours was not enough and had aggravated the people’s problems.

He claimed that the closure of the tunnel had led to surge in the prices of consumer goods and there would be scarcity of these goods after the current stocks exhausted.

The petitioner said the current government had stopped work on the project before diverting its funds to other projects.

He said when the general elections in the country were round the corner, the government had been trying to deceive the people through restoration of the ‘so-called’ construction work.

The respondents in the petition are the government of Pakistan through the finance secretary, the federal minister and federal secretary for communication, the NHA director and Sambu, a Korean construction company.

Also in the day, a single bench of the high court on Thursday sought reply from the Town III municipal officer over the construction of shops in the residential area of University Town in Peshawar.

Justice Mian Fasihul Mulk was hearing a petition filed by ophthalmologist Dr Ziaul Islam and some other residents of the area.

Earlier this month, the court had issued notice to the town municipal officer (TMO) for clarify his position on the matter.

However, when the bench began hearing into the case on Thursday, it was informed that the TMO hadn’t filed the reply.

The bench decided to issue him a fresh notice.

Babar Shahzad, lawyer for the petitioners, said the town administration had been constructing 45 shops in the residential area of University Town though there were many high court judgments, which banned commercial activities in residential areas.