Action against climbing expeditions in Hindu Kush – By: Prof. Rahmat Karim Baig
A foreign mountaineering expedition was on its way to Terich Mir peak last week and they were at two stages from the peak when there was a tourist disaster at Swat. The victims of the calamity were domestic tourists and had know proper knowledge of travelling and camping in the river bed nor were guided by the Hotel management where they were putting up. It was lamentable and the performance of the local administration was zero in the light of rescue operations. This became a nationwide bereavement. The higher authorities issued orders to local police to take necessary action as their duty.
The directive was not clear and all the tourists in the region were driven back and down to district headquarters as a step to save tourists. The directive must have been clear as whom to treat and how to be treated. The local police officials drove down the foreign mountaineering teams from around Terich Mir where they had reached after months of hard homework, exercises and payments as royalty. There was no forecast of cloudy weather, let alone rain, in the Chitral area- the entrance to High Hindu Kush during that week.
This affected team of climbers had spent a good amount of money on food, porters, camping, kits, time- took leave from their employers, spent their time on purchasing , packaging and transportation of their equipments and this preparation had taken months for a peak like Terich Mir. They had fulfilled all requirements of documentation in the offices of the Government of Pakistan and the red tappism that takes place in getting Permits after tiresome paperwork but when they were at the BASE of the peak they were stopped and driven back. Just imagine the frustration of the climbers.
They are back on their way and shall tell all the bad things done to them by our Bureaucracy which unfortunately knows nothing about such a foreign teams and all its efforts many month earlier when they decide to go to such and such a peak on a fix date. This is not a joke. The team shall go back and will tell about this irrational decision of our bureaucracy and negative behavior of the people who deal with Tourism.
This ill treatment will be in the media of that country and discourages potential adventure tourists in the coming years and throw dark shadow on the policies of our country. The senior officers who issue such negative instructions should be given refreshment training on rules, regulations, issues, problems, results, out puts, impacts, images and future of this shortsightedness. This kind of step taken in haste causes great disaster to the fragile image of the country because the officers are irresponsible and fail to understand the implications of their stupid decisions.
Prof. Rahmat Karim Baig
