SIALKOT: All 12 buses being used for transporting girl students under the supervision of former federal minister Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan’s NGO have been rusting away right under the nose of the district administration for the last one year.

Dr Firdous Awan has asked the authorities concerned to save these buses from rusting and unscrupulous elements who are stealing valuable parts of these buses parked at the Police Lines.

These buses are dumped due to an alleged political tussle between the two political bigwigs -- PPP’s Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan and PML-N’s Khawaja Muhammad Asif, now holding a portfolio of Federal Minister for Defence, Water and Power.

The district administration had confiscated the buses meant for free public welfare on the charge of their alleged misuse about a year back.

The fate of these buses has still not been decided as the matter is pending with the Lahore High Court. Dr Firdous had in her petition challenged the confiscation of these buses and termed the act a political victimization by the PML-N government.

Dr Firdous said it was a public welfare project of her NGO “Shade” which was providing free of cost transportation facilities to thousands of girl students of Bajwat-Sialkot and surrounding villages.

She said former prime minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani had donated these buses to her NGO after completing all legal formalities in this regard.

She alleged the PML-N government had politicized the welfare-oriented project and launched a vilification campaign against her to damage her political reputation.

rechecking: At least 2,000 students have applied for rechecking of their papers since the announcement of intermediate Part-I results of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE), Gujranwala.

Gujranwala BISE chairman Muhammad Aslam Seeekho told reporters here on Wednesday that most of rechecking applications were related to the science group.

He said the BISE had a foolproof marking system with hardly any chance of wrong marking.

He said that papers were often got marked by other nine education boards in Punjab.

He said the Gujranwala BISE was not directly responsible for the wrong marking, adding that action on around 2,000 applications for rechecking was being taken as per the BISE rules and regulations.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2014