KOHAT: The residents of Sher Ali Banda, Sumari and Cheenana villages here on Tuesday staged a protest against a three-day-long power outage in the localities.

They alleged that in the absence of linemen Pesco officials asked the villagers to fix the faults by themselves at great peril of their lives.

The protesters warned of blocking the main highway if a permanent solution to the problem was not found.

They alleged the Pesco staff came in the night and removed jumpers from the feeders on the excuse of extreme load.

They added three ceased transformers had been grounded, but they were yet to be replaced.

The power consumers said supply got suspended to the villages after spark on the lines, adding despite repeated requests Pesco line superintendent Farman Khan did not fix the fault.

The protest ended when Pesco senior line superintendent Farooq Khan reached the villages and restored the power supply. He told the consumers that he had only 22 linemen at his disposal against the required strength of 163.

INFORMATION OFFICE: Chief Information Commissioner, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sajid Khan Jadoon on Tuesday approved setting up the Right to Information (RTI) office and an appellate court in the Kohat division to facilitate the common people and officials access public information.

He made the decision during a meeting with divisional commissioner Syed Abdul Jabbar Shah.

Mr Jadoon underlined the importance of appellate arrangements at the divisional and district levels, and requested the Kohat commissioner to provide space for the staff and visiting bench of the commission. He said the forum would save the complainants from fatigue, precious time and resources while travelling to Peshawar.

Also in the day, the Hangu police arrested a man and seized drugs and weapons he was taking from Afghanistan to Kohat via Kurram.

District police officer Ikramullah Khan said the trafficker was arrested during checking of a passenger coach at the Abdul Ali checkpost. Six kilogrammes of hashish, a Kalashnikov, a pistol and seven repeaters were seized.

Similarly, the district’s Thal police arrested nine drug peddlers and 10 criminals along with weapons and drugs during an operation in the Afghan refugee camp.

The seizure included a Kalashnikov, a revolver, two shotguns, two repeaters, thousands of cartridges and two kilogrammes of hashish.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2021