February 15, 2007	Thursday	Muharram 26, 1428

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

VEHARI, Feb 14: A large number of people turned up at the maiden tehsil-level open kutchery on Wednesday with applications in hands and grievances on their lips.

The DCO, the DPO and the tehsil nazim showed up at the court which was held at the Tehsil Municipal Administration hall.

Traders of Bangle Bazaar protested against the sanitary staff of the TMA for turning a blind eye to the collapsed sewerage system. Whenever it rained, they said, water stayed in the market for many days owing to improper drainage facility that kept the customers away. The situation worsened during the latest spell of rain and the TMA, despite being informed about the situation many times, had failed to drain out the water.

Foul smell emitting out of stagnant water and heaps of garbage lying around could cause break out of an epidemic, they complained. They said many shops in the market had been closed for the last three days and customers preferred to shop at other places.

Tehsil Nazim Mian Saqib Khursheed assured the traders that their grievance would be redressed in a day.

A resident of Pipli Adda area alleged that the forest department officials had appropriated over Rs9 million after cutting and disposing of trees and got registered a fake case against him.

Shafiq Sethi, another participant, complained against the traffic police and also pointed out that a wagon stand had illegally been set up near the General Bus stand with the connivance of some district administration officials.

Many people had their complaints against the revenue department, Mepco, and the police. The DCO, the DPO and the nazim directed the officials concerned to take action against the wrongdoers and do the needful.

The DCO said the tehsil-level open kutchery had been held on the direction of Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi and similar courts would be held in Mailsi and Burewala soon.

GANGS SMASHED: The Burewala police claimed on Wednesday to have smashed five gangs of dacoits and recovered booty, vehicles and weapons in quantity.

Vehari DPO Malik Tassadaq Hayat told a press conference at the ASP office that the gangs were known as Nasri gang, Zafri gang, Saqib gang, Akri gang and Zahori gang and 12 of their members had been arrested.

He said these gangs had been operating in the district, especially some rural areas of Burewala tehsil, for the last two years. The police raided their hideouts in various parts of the district on a tip-off, he said, adding that the other members of the gangs would be caught very soon.