KOHAT: The menace of hashish addiction among youth is growing at an alarming rate as Mohammadzai, a town adjacent Kohat city, has become a focal point of sale and purchase of the drug.

Hashish is produced in the tribal areas along Kohat and brought by tribesmen, who easily sell it in Mohammadzai town. The residents said that many young people of the village and nearby areas had become drug addicts, as there was no check on the tribesmen who come down from the tribal areas and sell hashish in the settled area.

The border area between Kohat and Orakzai Agency is disputed between the Bezote tribe of lower Orakzai and Mohammdzai tribe of Kohat. The two tribes have even raised private armed groups to keep check on each other’s movement.

The dispute intensified after the discovery of coal in the region.

When contacted, district police officer, Kohat, Mohammad Sohaib Ashraf said that police did not have the required resources to catch every consignment smuggled to Kohat because the border along Orakzai Agency and Frontier Region of Kohat was long and porous.

“As there exists no ban on its (hashish) growing and production then it has to be smuggled like weapons manufactured in Darra Adamkhel, and if effort is made to eliminate it this will render thousands of families jobless and they may again indulge in kidnappings for ransom,” he observed.

The local people have appealed to Governor Sardar Mahtab Ahmad Khan to push the Bezote tribe inside Orakzai Agency and get the occupied land vacated from them.

DAM PROJECT: The under-construction Zamir Gul dam will irrigate over 3,000 acres of barren land in Kohat district.

The dam estimated to cost Rs1 billion is being constructed in the remote Ziarat Sheikh Allahdad village, around 71 kilometres from Kohat city. Work on the small dam was launched in 2013 by the PTI-led government and the project is expected to be completed in June 2016.

According to an official statement, the dam would have 27.43 kilometres long channels and it would irrigate 3,500 acres barren land. It will have the catchment area of 36.5 square miles and storage capacity of 7,971 acre feet.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2015

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