December 22, 2001	Saturday	Shawwal 6, 1422

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TOBA TEK SINGH, Dec 21: At least 4,000 employees of the National Bank of Pakistan have applied for voluntary retirement from service under the fresh golden handshake scheme.

This was stated in a news conference here on Friday by NBP employees union central president and secretary-general Masood Akhtar Papa and Akbar Ali Khan, respectively.

They said the bank was already facing staff shortage as a result of the previous golden handshake schemes offered to thousands of hard-working employees. The fresh scheme would further aggravate the situation, they said.

The fresh voluntary retirements, they said, would badly affect the disbursement of pension and salaries to government employees.

They said the bank management had not introduced any income raising scheme for the last five years, adding that it should offer incentives to traders and new and old account holders.

They proposed that over 3,000 ad hoc and temporary employees should be regularized besides lifting the ban on fresh recruitment to overcome the situation of staff shortage.

TAKEN AWAY: Three robbers on Friday deprived a driver of his taxi cab on the Toba-Jhang Road, some three kilometres from Jhang.

The robbers in the guise of passengers hired the taxi cab (LOS-7144) from Kamalia for Pindi Bhattian. When they reached near Mouza Bagh, they held driver Muhammad Ashraf at gunpoint and tied him with a rope. After subjecting him to severe torture, they threw him out of the car and drove away with the vehicle.

Meanwhile, thieves took away a car from a nearby Chak 319-JB on Thursday night.

Saifullah Irshad had parked his car (9936 LKB) outside his house.

PROMOTED: District Education Officer (elementary) Chaudhry Sarwar on Friday promoted two EST teachers from grade 12 to 15 and nine teachers from grade 9 to 12.

CRUSHED TO DEATH: A boy was crushed to death by a speeding bus (6190-GTC) on Friday on the Toba-Gojra Road near Chak 287-JB Pilasour.

Muhammad Nasir was crossing the road when he met an accident.

Saddar police have registered a case against the absconding driver.

ELECTION CAMPAIGN: The election campaign has been started in district courts for the forthcoming election of office bearers of the district bar association. One group has nominated PBC members Mian Muhammad Afzal and Chaudhry Amjad Kahloon while the other group fielded former DBA president Mian Shahid Iqbal and Chaudhry Masood Kahloon for the slots of president and secretary-general.