GUJRANWALA, Jan 5: A special central court on Monday awarded four-year imprisonment along with a fine of Rs160,000 to a human trafficker who had been arrested by Gujranwala circle of Federal Investigation Agency a few months back.

Reports said Zafari Butt was wanted in 27 human smuggling cases. His name was entered in red book. He was arrested by the agency from Kharian a few months ago when he came back from abroad after 10 years.

Meanwhile, an FIA team raided Gujrat, Kharian and Lala Musa and arrested three more human agents who had received hundreds of thousands of rupees from people, but they neither sent them abroad not returned their money.

PROTEST CANCELLED: Trader representatives and civil society members cancelled their rally against power outages on the appeal of Punjab Senior Minister Raja Riaz Ahmad who had a meeting with them at Circuit House here on Monday.

He urged them to avoid protest processions and cooperate with the government. He said the government was fully aware of the worsening situation of loadshedding and taking solid steps to overcome it. He directed Gujranwala Electric Power Company (Gepco) chief executive Rana M Ashraf Zahid, who attended the meeting, to ensure eight-hour uninterrupted power supply to industrialists daily.

Zahid apprised the senior minister that Gepco had entered into contracts with some international companies and got Rs5 billion grant for construction of new power houses.