HARIPUR: The residents of Kotnajibullah village have complained about acute water shortage and said the problem occurred as the pumping machine of a local tubewell had gone out of order.

Accompanied by a dozen of other Kotnajibullah resident, Shabbir, Tanveer and Khalid told reporters that their village having a population of over 3,000 had been facing water shortage for more than seven days due to the authorities’ failure to repair the tubewell’s faulty pumping machine.

They said the village had two tubewells and one of them had been out of order suspending water supply to different localities. The villagers complained that power transformer had burnt and the Pesco replaced it four days later.

They said as the transformer became functional, the tubewell’s pumping machine went out of order accidentally.

The villagers regretted that the relevant authorities had yet to replace or repair that machine.

They said the situation had forced them to fetch water from faraway places.

The villagers said it was unfortunate that the area despite being native land of many leading politicians suffered from acute water shortage. They warned that they would stage protests if the faulty pumping machine was not repaired or replaced without delay.

When contacted, an official of the public health engineering department said the faulty machine would be replaced in few days to address water shortage.

COP ATTACKED: Gunmen injured a policeman in a Khanpur village here the other day.

The Khanpur police said constable Mohammad Banaras posted to the District Security Branch, Haripur, was on the way to home in Mang village on motorcycle when two masked men opened fire at him.

They said the cop suffered injuries in the attack and was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital, where the doctors declared his condition to be out of danger.

The police said police had yet to trace the gunmen, who fled after the attack.

They said an investigation team had been constituted under the supervision of DSP Headquarters Sabir Khan to look into the firing incident.

The DSP ruled out the possibility of involvement of terrorists in the attack and said the constable was possibly targeted over a family feud.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2018