KOHAT: The absence of facilities and inability of the district administration to take on board the traders union for shifting of chicken, meat, vegetable and fruit outlets to the new Sasta Ramazan bazaar has led to suspension of two officials of tehsil municipal administration.

Officials confided to this correspondent that the tehsil nazim, naib nazim and tehsil municipal officer were bypassed while suspending the two officials on the directives of the district administration.

They said that the secretary local government suspended encroachment officer Mohammad Waqas and assistant tax superintendent (rent) Bashir Ahmad of TMA on Wednesday for allegedly delaying commissioning of the Sasta bazaar even by mid of Ramazan without first initiating any kind of inquiry. However, copy of the suspension order has not been delivered to the tehsil municipal administration office till closure of the office hours on Thursday.

Traders also reluctant to shift to Sasta bazaar

Mr Ahmad told this scribe that he had been made a scapegoat in the process. He said that he had been given the additional charge of encroachment officer, Mohammad Waqas, on May 25 for a month as he was on a pilgrimage for Umrah.

Mr Ahmad said that the DC had summoned him and superintendent tax responsible for Sasta bazaar, Farzand Kayani, to his office on Friday and asked them why they had not accomplished Sasta bazaar so far without allowing him to explain his position.

“I have been hardly given half a day to acquaint myself with the correspondence so far done with the shop owners about their shifting who have been refusing to bring their businesses to Sasta bazaar sheds constructed earlier this year,” Mr Ahmad said, adding that the only way left with them was to call police to force the traders to come to the Sasta bazaar site.

MURDER CASE: A family from Orakzai Agency has termed the murder of 27-year-old Saqib a result of stray bullet during firing in the air and not by accused brothers, demanding judicial inquiry into the case.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Mir Asghar, father of Jan Akbar and Iftikhar, said that on May 24, 2018 they called Junglekhel police after arresting red-handed Ahmed and Saleem for slaughtering their stolen cow.

He claimed that after detention of Ahmed and Saleem by them they called police and firing started in the darkness due to which Saqib fell prey to a stray bullet while Akbar and Iftikhar were nominated in the FIR.

The police in a statement issued on Thursday said that both the accused were in prison and after submission of challan, trial of the case had began. It claimed that both were arrested along with weapons used in the murder.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2018