KOHAT: The centuries-old city’s springs resort has been virtually defaced due to poor planning of the tehsil municipal administration where flowing water has become stinking and murky in its two separate sections for the male and female visitors.

This was stated by district councillor Karamat Ali Shah while talking to mediapersons during his visit of the site. He alleged that the TMA had wasted Rs30.2 million on the construction of a pool for females and the beautification by making one of the three pools in the male section and uprooting the old sheds and benches.

The new swimming pool for females was constructed under the beautification plan last year, but due to its defective architecture the downstream side had been constructed two feet above the drainage level.

Mr Shah said that the boundary wall of the female side was low and the site was visible from the adjacent mosque and other buildings.

District councillor slams wastage of funds on beautification plan

He demanded that the engineers should decrease the ground level so that freshwater could flow normally and also raise the boundary level to protect the women visitors.

The councillor said that he would not allow the plan of the administration to construct overhead water tank at the spring site and asked the officials to select some other place for this purpose. He said that the swimming pools must be repaired before start of summer as people had started taking bath in them.

HARASSMENT ALLEGED: A resident of Merozai has accused the officials of Mohammad Riaz Shaheed (MRS) police station of harassment and raiding his house without search warrants by allegedly implicating him and his brother in fake cases.

Speaking at a press conference here on Sunday, Ameer Khan alleged that the police had been victimising them and had some time back staged a drama of recovery of more than six kilogrammes of hashish from his brother at old bus stand.

He said that the people of the area had also been telling the police that they belonged to a respectable family and had nothing to do with crimes. He criticised the police for violating the sanctity of his house and that too despite his complaints to the state minister for interior Shehryar Afridi and the IGP.

He demanded of the DPO to order an inquiry into the matter and rid them of the mental agony.

When contacted, SHO of the said police station, Asif Mehmood, denied the allegations and said that the hashish had been recovered by the anti-narcotics force on prior information. He said that they had never raided his house nor had the SP ever asked them to do so.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2019