MANSEHRA: The families affected by the Dasu hydropower project on Thursday staged a sit-in against Wapda in Zal area of Upper Kohistan district complaining about non-payment of land price.

“Wapda has acquired our land for dumping gravels and other construction materials and parking dumper and other trucks but didn’t pay us its prices even four years after acquisition,” local elder Malik Fazlur Rehman said in Suo tehsil on Thursday.

The protesters, who belonged to different areas, shouted slogans against Wapda.

They said the sit-in would continue until they’re paid price of the acquired land.

Protesters insist admin acquired land for project but has yet to make payment

Elder Inyatur Rehman said the land was acquired by the district administration almost four years ago and the landowners repeatedly took up the issue with the deputy commissioner and Wapda high-ups, but to no avail.

He said dumpers and other trucks also destroyed standing crops and water resources but the people didn’t get any compensation.

KILLED: A man was gunned down by motorcyclists in Jalalabad area here on Thursday.

SHO of the city police station Noman Javed told reporters that the police had begun an investigation to trace and arrest two gunmen, who killed Gohar Ayub, 25, on the Major Ayub Khan Road and fled.

He said the deceased recently moved to the area from Bannu with his newlywed wife.

Meanwhile, the police busted a gang of robbers here and seized stolen goods.

BAIL DENIED: A Torghar district court has rejected the bail plea of a woman named in a sexual assault case as a co-accused.

The woman’s husband and another resident had allegedly filmed her friend naked and tortured and assaulted her.

District and sessions judge Jamaluddin Khan, who is based in Oghi area of Mansehra district, denied bail to the woman after hearing arguments of the counsel for both sides.

A video showing the accused torture stripped women had gone viral on social media last month.

One of those women had told the court that she was deceived by the wife of an accused to be at her residence in Darband, where she was sexually assaulted and filmed naked.

Meanwhile, a court in Oghi area rejected the bail plea of residents Mohammad Sabeel and Abdul Rehman in a murder case.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2021