Two-day Broghil festival to kick off on Sept 5.

CHITRAL: The two-day Broghil festival will kick off from Sept 5 at the Broghil National Park in Upper Chitral district bordering the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan in the extreme north.

Being organised by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Tourism Department and the Upper Chitral district administration, the festival will showcase various activities, including horse and yak polo, cricket, football, Buzkashi, marathon race, tug-of-war, wrestling, music and other traditional games.

Buzkashi is an ancient Asian game in which a dead goat is pulled by a player while riding a horse.

He is declared the winner if he succeeds in carrying it around the ground without being snatched by other players.

Upper Chitral deputy commissioner Shah Saud said the festival was the first event being held during the calendar year as the earlier ones, including the Shandur festival, were cancelled due to Covid-19.

He said arrangements were being made for highlighting different aspects of the ancient and unique Wakhi culture, while a tent village would be established in Broghil to facilitate the participants and tourists.

JAIL REFORMS: Special assistant to the chief minister on prisons, Taj Mohammad Khan Tarand, has said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government is making concrete efforts to introduce jail reforms aimed at making the inmates constructive and useful members of society after their release.

Addressing media persons after a visit to the district jail on Friday, he said the provincial cabinet had recently approved setting up industries in jails of Peshawar, Haripur and Mardan to provide employment to hundreds of prisoners to help them feed their families even from behind the bars.

He said the industrialisation process in jails would be extended to all the districts so thousands of prisoners might leave the jails as skilled persons to be able to earn a living for their families instead of restarting criminal activities.

Accompanied by IG prisons Masoodur Rahman, CM’s aide Wazirzada and local MPA Maulana Hedayatur Rahman, the CM’s assistant visited different portions of the jail, including the barracks housing women and juvenile prisoners.

He directed reducing jail terms of the inmates by two months, and provision of a heating facility to them during winter.