Quake mutes Muslim festival

QUAKE survivors marked a normally joyous Muslim festival with sombre prayers in debris-strewn fields and visits to the graves of victims yesterday, as Pakistan’s president deferred a key purchase of US fighter jets to focus on reconstruction.

Pakistani President Gen Pervez Musharraf, visiting the city of Muzaffarabad in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir shattered by the October 8 quake, said the government wanted “to bring maximum relief and reconstruction efforts.”

He was criticised earlier this week after saying the quake would not affect his country’s enormous defence spending.