SWABI: Scores of local people have appealed to the chief minister and inspector general of police to help them in tracing the travel agents, who, according to them, defrauded them in the name of sending them to Saudi Arabia for job.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, about 60 residents of various areas of the district alleged that the fraudsters looted Rs15 million from them and disappeared.

Led by Jan Mohammad of Kotha, the villagers said that they were defrauded under a well-planned strategy by three travel agents, who promised to send them to Saudi Arabia for employment in different reputed companies.

They said that the three travel agents worked at a local travel agency at main market of Topi tehsil.

The villagers said that people belonging to Topi, Kotha, Maini and various other areas were defrauded by Zakir Khan, Asghar Khan and Qaisar Khan.

The former was resident of Maini village while the remaining two were dwellers of Kotha village, they added. They said after getting money from them, the travel agents disappeared and left their houses.

The enraged people said that the money taken from them was different in amount and each of them was kept in dark. The agents also got their passports and other documents but didn’t return the same, they added.

“All the three agents were locals and we didn’t expect that they would deceive us,” said Youqab Khan, a resident of Topi. He said that they needed help of government to trace the fraudsters.

Jan Mohammad demanded that the government to award exemplary punishment to all those agents, who deceived them.

He said that they had already met with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Asad Qaisar and various other officials of

the district administration and parliamentarians but all of them were reluctant to help them.

COUNCIL: A disputes resolution council was set up in Chota Lahor on Wednesday.

The inaugural ceremony of the council was attended by District Police Officer Sajjad Khan and elders of the area. The members of the council were told to coordinate with each other while settling minor disputes among the people.

The members said that they would uphold the given guidelines but police should also cooperate with them. They said that without the help of police it might be difficult for them to resolve disputes among local people.

Published in Dawn, November 13th , 2014