PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has ordered investigations into the tragic incident of death of several people due to release of toxic effluent by a sugar mills in Dera Ismail Khan and announced compensation for the affected families.

According to a handout issued here on Sunday, the inquiry committee constituted on the directives of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak would start the probe from Monday (today) and submit its report to him within a fortnight. The committee would also record statements of the affected families and fix responsibility wherein punishment would be proposed for those responsible for the human tragedy.

Under the package, the district administration as per directives of the chief minister will pay Rs100,000 to heirs of each dead and Rs50,000 to each fainted/injured in the incident.

In addition to this, the chief minister also sanctioned a compensation amount of Rs2 million for the affected families. He said that this was a token of sharing the grief and financial hardships of the affected families on behalf of government and people of the province. He asked the DI Khan commissioner to arrange release of the compensation amount to the affected at the earliest.

Meanwhile, DI Khan Commissioner Mushtaq Jadoon along with other officials concerned visited four different villages whose people were affected due to toxic effluent released in Ramak drain by the sugar mills.

The commissioner told the affected people that seven officials of the mills had been arrested and given into the custody of police for interrogation. It was stated that soon after listening about the incident the chief minister had directed the commissioner, DC and police high-ups of DI Khan to reach the venue and supervise relief activities themselves. He had also asked for conducting immediate inquiry into the incident.