TIMERGARA, Aug 29: Provincial Senior Minister Sirajul Haq announced on Thursday that work on two hydel power stations with combined generation capacity of 181 megawatts would soon be started in Dir as the federal government had approved the projects on the request of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Speaking at a public gathering at Samar Bagh, Lower Dir, he said that the two hydel power stations would be established at Sharmai and Koto in Lower Dir. He said that Rs35.5 billion would be spent on the construction of Sharmai hydel power station, which would produce 150 megawatts of electricity.

He said that another Rs8.31 billion would be spent on the Koto hydropower station that would produce 31 megawatt of electricity.

The minister said that people of Malakand division had been facing acute shortage of electricity and completion of these projects would end power crisis in the region.

“People here will get cheap and uninterrupted electricity after completion of these projects,” Mr Haq told the gathering. He said that it was a longstanding demand of the people of Malakand.

The senior minister said that the approval of both the projects was given by the central government during a recent meeting of the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) in Islamabad.

ACCUSED FOUND DEAD: The main accused in the Khall triple murder case, Mumtaz Begum, 28, was found shot dead at Malai village in the jurisdiction of Khall police station on Wednesday night, residents and police said on Thursday. Brother of the deceased woman, Sartaj, told the police that someone informed him that body of his sister was lying in Malai at a deserted place.

The Khall police had charged her in a triple murder case when three youth Nazir Ahmad, Bakht Jamal and Azizullah were allegedly killed by unknown persons in Khall on June 20 this year. Bodies of two of them were later retrieved from Panjkora river while body of Azizullah was still missing.

Relatives of the killed youth had nominated Mumtaz Begum, her father Rozi Khan and husband Abdul Rahman in the case. Police had arrested Rozi Khan while the woman and her husband were absconding.

The woman was found dead and her body bearing three bullet injuries was handed over to her relatives on Thursday, the police said. The Khall police registered a case and have started investigation.

The Khall police claimed that Mumtaz Begum was the main accused in the case, as she had allegedly invited the youth to her home at night on June 22.