MANSEHRA: The Peshawar High Court’s Abbottabad Circuit Bench has summoned the head of the higher education department and deputy commissioner of Mansehra district to respond to a petition challenging the relocation of a girls’ college.

The schedule of the hearing will be announced afterward.

The petition was filed by a group of residents, including former minister Habibur Rehman Tanoli, former tehsil nazim Bashiruddin Tanoli and students of the Parhana Degree College for Girls.

The bench consisting of Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Shakeel Ahmad issued the summons after hearing lawyer for petitioners Fahad Habib Tanoli Fahad Habib Tanoli.

The department had ordered the college’s relocation from Parhana area in Mansehra tehsil to Sherger area in Oghi tehsil last month prompting the residents, especially parents, to take to the streets against it.

Mr Tanoli told reporters that one of his clients had promised in writing to provide a piece of land for the college’s building in the area, where it currently stood.

He claimed that the judges opposed the college’s relocation observing the educational institution approved for Parhanatown couldn’t be shifted to anywhere else.

The college is among the province’s 35 other educational institutions, whose construction orders were de-notified by the government lately.

VACANCIES: Over 9,000 people have applied for 200 lower grade posts lying vacant in schools across Mansehra district for many years.

“We will ensure the filling of vacancies on merit,” district education officer Khan Mohammad Swati told reporters on Friday.

He said the posts of watchmen, peons and sweepers would be filled on open merit and in line with the quota for the sons of retried and deceased employees.

MAN KILLED: A man was killed and seven people, including two women, suffered critical injuries when a passenger jeep fell into a deep ravine in Shinkiari area on Friday.

The jeep bound for Pulwai village from Shinkiari met the accident as the driver lost its control while negotiating a sharp turn.

The injured were shifted to the Shinkiari civil hospital whose doctors referred them to hospitals in Mansehra and Abbottabad, where condition of three of them was stated to be critical.

Meanwhile, a man killed his younger brother in Tarangri Pain area over a property dispute.

The police registered an FIR and began search for the fleeing suspected killer, Fazl Rabi.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2019