KOHAT: Kohat Chamber of Commerce and Industries senior vice-president Hafiz Rasheed has said that Kohat has been deliberately kept backward though it is the headquarters of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, due to the supremacy of politicians from the central parts of the province.

Talking to Dawn on Thursday, he said that Kohat district had been denied its share of development for decades and now it was lagging far behind other districts in health, education, social and business facilities and opportunities.

Mr Rasheed claimed that for over two decades Kohat’s business community was represented by a vested interest group and KCCI was owned by a mafia though it had no official status. He criticised the PTI-led government, saying it had so far not provided Kohat with modern health facilities though successive governments had been announcing burns center, trauma center and provision of machinery for hospitals.

KCCI secretary general Faiq Shah said that whatever infrastructure was present had now completely broken down especially during last one decade of war against terrorism in the adjoining areas and arrival of IDPs in Kohat. He said that both the federal and KP governments should provide funds for the development of Kohat division.

TWO KILLED: Two tribesmen were killed during a gunfight between two alleged gangs of drug sellers in Sheraki village of Darra Adamkhel on Thursday.

When contacted, an official of the administration of Frontier Region, Kohat, said that two gangs of drug peddlers clashed over some dispute and as a result Masroor and Javed were killed.

He said that the main accused, identified as Shakoor, escaped while his three alleged accomplices were arrested and locked up in the prison in Kohat. The administration has registered a case against the accused.

Meanwhile, a passenger coach crushed a woman standing by the road in Chakarkot Bala on Hangu Highway on Thursday.

The police said that the coach coming from Hangu to Kohat hit Mst Marjan Begum, who later died on way to hospital. The Ustarzai police have registered a case against the driver.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2015