Sardar Masood Khan, President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir ( AJK) has said that the state government is determined to take every possible measure within its resources to effectively respond to any natural calamities
MUZAFFARABAD (Pakistan Point News - 7th Oct, 2019) Sardar Masood Khan, President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir ( AJK) has said that the state government is determined to take every possible measure within its resources to effectively respond to any natural calamities.
In a message on the 14th anniversary of October 2005 disastrous earthquake, he said that the catastrophe that had hit Muzaffarabad, Bagh and Poonch districts of Azad Kashmir besides parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, claimed thousands of lives of children, youth, women and old aged people, had pulled down public and private property on a large scale is still fresh in our minds.
The AJK president said that those who had experienced this natural calamity would perhaps never forget it. "Those who departed us are still alive in our hearts, and we pray to Almighty Allah to rest them in eternal peace," he added.
He said that compensation or reward of the loss of human life is not possible, but the government has successfully tried to meet the challenge of rehabilitation of quake-affected people and reconstruction of destroyed infrastructure.
"Although several projects in education, health and communication sectors are still under completion or could not be started but by the grace of Allah, more than ninety percent of infrastructure has been reconstructed in a better way, and this is a matter of great satisfaction for the government and the people of Azad Kashmir," he added.
On this occasion, the AJK president thanked the international community particularly brotherly Muslim countries of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and UAE as well as United States, UK, European countries and China for generously contributing to relief, rescue and rehabilitation operations, and helping in successfully meeting this gigantic challenge.
"Side by side with international community, the Pakistani armed forces had made unprecedented contribution to the relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction work in affected areas," he added.
Sardar Masood Khan said that the earthquakes of October 8, 2005 and September 24, 2019 have taught us a lesson that almost all parts of Azad Kashmir are on the fault line, and we need to evolve short term and long term disaster management strategies.
Meanwhile, expressing deep sense of grief and shock over the death of leader of All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim conference and former state minister Ali Khan Chughtai, the AJK President Sardar Masood Khan has prayed to Almighty Allah to grant courage to the bereaved family to bear this irreparable loss.
In a message to late Chughtai's son Dewan Ali Chughtai, the state president paid glowing tributes to his father for his political and social services.
