Foreigners accompanied by locals drove their jeep on a hiking trail inside the Margalla Hills National Park (MHNP) in Islamabad on 13 October, despite the fact that vehicles are not permitted there.
According to the details, they brought their jeep inside Trail 4 and claimed that it was a jeep track when someone tried to stop them.
The incident came to light after the Chairperson of the Islamabad Wildlife Management Board (IWMB) and Climate Activist, Rina Khan, tweeted about it and described how offenders could be seen driving their jeep across the Trail 4.
Reportedly, the perpetrators utterly disregarded the wildlife and the local rules and grew hostile after IWMB volunteers attempted to stop them, given the fact that the Park Rangers were also stationed inside the mentioned track, who later caught them and told them to leave.
Chairperson IWMB revealed that the Capital Development Authority (CDA) is also attempting to penalize the violators while the IWMB will send them a legal notice.
It is pertinent to mention that Park Rangers cannot penalize anyone who refuses to obey wildlife rules since Parliament has not granted them such powers.
Note here that IWMB’s Wildlife Act is currently pending in the legislature, which if enacted, will give the Park Rangers the right to arrest and penalize violators.
