KOHAT: The 31 elders of Barh-Jabbi area and the adjoining villages, who have been booked by the city police for blocking the Kohat-Parachinar Road to demand construction of a road, have said that state minister Sheharyar Afridi is behind the police move.

The elders led by Shah Mehmood and Arshad Khan told reporters here on Wednesday that the state minister and CM’s adviser Ziaullah Bangash had been making false promises for last seven years that funds had been approved for the project.

The elders said they had sacrificed their agricultural lands for construction of the Tanda Dam in 1971, but were kept deprived of development.

They recalled that Mr Bangash had promised elders from a dozen villages that the communication and works department had been directed to construct the road, but to no avail.

The police said cases had been registered after the protesters blocked the Hangu-Parachinar highway for hours at Hangu railway crossing the other day, which inconvenienced the commuters.

COMPUTERISED LAND RECORD: Provincial revenue minister Qalandar Khan Lodhi has said 25 centres out of the targeted 58 have been connected to the computerised land record delivery unit to bring transparency in the verification process and do away with the notorious patwari culture.

Inaugurating a revenue department office on Wednesday near the government high school for boys No 2, he said the new system would facilitate the common man without intervention of patwaris.

He regretted that he had been receiving complaints about the incomplete land record due to the patwari culture, and asked the deputy commissioners to expedite the land record transfers and verification in their respective districts.

He said the new system would ensure transfer of land, making individual transfers, dividing land among owners in two days.

CM’s adviser on information technology Ziaullah Bangash was also present.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2020