Qaqlasht Festival final draws crowds

CHITRAL, April 18, 2011: The four-day Qaqlasht festival witnessed a great rush of spectators from all parts of the district on its final day on Monday and people, including women and children, enjoyed the folk sports of shooting, falconry, tug-of-war and traditional football (bampu ghal).

Haider Wali Haideri, who has been associated with organizing the festival for the last 21 years, told this correspondent that this year the response of people was unprecedented.

In the competitions held on village level, Booni town emerged winner by grabbing cricket, tug-of-war, bampu ghall and mountain race titles.

Morder village clinched football cup; Faizur Rahman Laal and companions of Kosht village won target shooting competition; and Hayat Shah of Torkhow was declared the winner of falconry. Chitral Scouts lifted the volleyball trophy.

The final of polo match between Booni and Kosht could not be held for shortage of time and would be played next week.

District development advisory committee chairman Ghulam Mohammad, who was the chief guest at the concluding ceremony, gave away prizes to the winning teams and players.

On this occasion, Mr Ghulam praised the Tourism Corporation of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for sponsoring the Kagh Lusht festival and said that the tourism potential of upper Chitral needed to be exploited to end unemployment and poverty in the area.

He said that many areas of the tourist resort still needed to be discovered and developed to attract tourists.

“We have a large number of picnic spots and many unique and interesting things to offer to the tourists, but serious work is still needed to be done to develop the tourism sector,” he said.--Zahiruddin