SWABI: Farmers expect a bumper wheat production this year as they are to harvest the crop in next five days across the Swabi district.

Talking to reporters here on Monday, they said if there was no natural calamity at the critical stage, they would have the expected yield.

Alam Sher Gohati, provincial general secretary of Anjuman-i-Kashtkaran, said the wheat crop in both irrigation and rain-fed regions was in good shape. He said the production would be sufficient for meeting grain needs of farmers and its sale in the market.

“A good yield would help improve the financial position of the growers, enabling them to meet the requirements of fertiliser and pesticides for other crops,” he said.

Kisan Board district president Khalid Khan said unexpected rains had worried the farmers, but they wouldn’t have any adverse effect on the yield.

He advised the farmers against succumbing to tactics of flour millers, who usually purchased wheat from them at low prices, exploiting growers’ weak financial position.

Obaid-ur-Rehman, a farmer from Maneri village, complained that there was no mechanism at the official level to purchase wheat from them at reasonable rates.

KILLED: Four people were killed and 15 injured in different incidents during the Eid days, Rescue 1122 officials and police said on Monday.

Raj Wali, 40, a teacher in Islamia College Peshawar, was shot dead by rivals near the Swabi interchange on the Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway when he was taking tea along with his 10-year-old son at a restaurant.

The victim belonged to Chota Lahor.

The body was taken to Bacha Khan Hospital Complex, Shahmansoor, for autopsy.

The cause of the incident was a property dispute.

Separately, Luqman Khan, 20, drowned in the River Indus while bathing along with his friends at downstream of Tarbela Dam near Himlet village in Topi tehsil.

He was shifted to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital, Topi, where doctors confirmed his death.

A man, identified as Abdullah of Shagai village, was found dead in the fields.

Also, one person was killed and five others were injured when a car fell into a canal in Panjpir area. The body and the injured were shifted to Bacha Khan Hospital. The victim was identified as Syed Rehman, 36, who was driving the car. He belonged to Gohati village.

The injured, belonging to a family, were residents of Peshawar.

Meanwhile, three persons were injured when two motorcycles collided on Kotha-Topi Road.

Also, seven persons were injured in different road and firing incidents on Monday.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2023