KOHAT: Army personnel will be deployed in Kohat, Hangu and Karak districts to ensure smooth and peaceful re-poling in local government elections today (Thursday).

The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Kohat division commissioner Syed Jamaluddin Shah here on Wednesday. The meeting reviewed arrangements for the re-polling.

DIG Kohat range Dr Ishtiaq Marwat, DC Kohat Kamram Ahmed Afridi, DC Karak Shoeb Jadoon, DC Hangu Mujeeb-ur-Rehman, Orakzai Agency political agent Mohammad Zubair, DPO Kohat Soheb Ashraf, DPO Hangu Anwar Kundi and other relevant officials were in attendance.

The commissioner said section 144 had been imposed to ensure smooth re-polling and asked concerned quarters to take action against violators of the ban.

Mr Shah said re-polling would be held on 70 polling stations in Karak, five in Kohat and four in Hangu, which would be jointly manned by army and police personnel.

STUDENTS BOOKED: The acting vice chancellor of the Kohat University of Science and Technology got registered on Wednesday an FIR against six students in the Jarma police station, and seized their two semesters as well for participating in the ongoing protest against the varsity administration.

Arman Gul of mathematics department, Arsalan Tahir of economics department, Sharif Ullah and Saeed Ullah of IT department, Mohsin ud Din and Yazeeb Ullah of English department were booked. As a result of seizure of two semesters the students would receive their degree late by a year.

The students of Kohat University of Science and Technology have been demanding the start of a summer semester for the last three years and staging protests to pressure the varsity management to meet their demand.

The protesting students said summer semester was part of the academic schedule in universities, but vice chancellor Fida Younis had rejected their demand, forcing them to protest.

Dawn tried to contact Mr Younis on his phone, but he didn’t answer.

POWER DEFAULTERS BOOKED: Pesco registered on Wednesday cases against 300 defaulters and power thieves in the Kohat division in a bid to recover Rs1.25 billion dues and curb power theft.

Javed Iqbal, Pesco executive engineer for Kohat division, told Dawn that some black sheep in the company were facilitating people to use kunda system, adding that such elements would be taken to task.

He said Pesco’s Kohat division included districts of Kohat, Hangu, Karak and Fata in KP and Mianwali in Punjab, where outstanding dues had surged to over Rs1 billion.

He asked the consumers to cooperate with the Pesco to help recover power dues and take action against power thieves so that loadshedding duration could be reduced.

Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play