17 April 2004	Saturday	26 Safar 1425

QUETTA, April 16: The Pishin Scouts and other law-enforcement agencies on Friday destroyed poppy crop in three villages of Gulistan tehsil. "Nobody offered resistance during the operation," Pishin Scouts Commandant Col Basit Rana told Dawn.

The provincial authorities had given the deadline of April 15 to the growers for destroying the crop themselves, he said. He said the troops had destroyed poppy crop over 60 acres in Segi, Dulongi and Norak Sulemankhel villages.

Around 2,500 Pishin Scouts and levies men surrounded the area and took position on the nearby mountains before the launching of the operation. People have cultivated poppy over around 400 acres in the tehsil while last year it had been cultivated over around 5,000 acres.

Col Rana said the transformers of those growers would be withdrawn who had cultivated poppy and the Anti-Narcotics Force would register cases against them. A Chaman administration official said poppy cultivated in some homes had also been destroyed with the cooperation of the local people.

HASHISH SEIZED: The ANF conducted a raid in Hoshab area on Thursday on a tip-off and seized 725kg of hashish dumped in a Nullah. No one was arrested.

EDUCATION SYSTEM: Balochistan Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani on Monday underlined the need for abolishing the class-based education system. Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the National Commission for Human Development's project 'Every child in school', he said a uniform system of education should be introduced in the country.

He said only the privileged children were getting benefit from the modern education system while a majority of them were deprived of the facilities. He expressed the hope that the projects of the commission would help in removing the backwardness of Balochistan in the education sector.

He said the provincial government was striving for the promotion of education and it had established the first women's university in Balochistan in seven months.

"We plan to open institutions of science and technology in the province for education in bio-technology, marine sciences, mining, minerals development and other fields," he said.

The governor expressed pleasure over the commission's project for establishing an information technology training institution in Pishin and announced a grant of Rs500,000 for it.

NCHD Chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf said over six million children either did not go to school or left it before completing their primary education every year in the country. He said 500,000 children were admitted to schools in 16 districts under the project last year.

He said the project would be extended to 30 districts this year and to the whole of the country by 2007. He said the project had been launched in the Pishin, Qila Saifullah, Mastung and Jafferabad districts in Balochistan and 50,000 sets of primary school books were being handed over to the provincial government for distribution among the students free of cost.