KOHAT: Five overseas Pakistanis belonging to Kohat were killed in a road accident while they were going to Makkah from Madina for performing Umra on Tuesday.

Giving details, spokesman for the district police officer said that one of the victims, Farooq Shah, was the brother of police constable Islam Shah of Sorgul village here.

He quoted Islam Shah as telling him that Qadir Mehmood, Afsar Khan, Zahid and Omer Farooq of Somari Payan and Farooq Shah of Sorgul were on their way to Makkah in their car when it met an accident near Madina. All the five inmates died on the spot and their bodies were shifted to a nearby hospital.

He said that arrangements had been made for bringing back the bodies. They would be buried in their ancestral graveyards.

SHOPKEEPERS HELD: Assistant commissioner Mehmood Ahmed has said that in the absence of any law the administration can’t check the cloth merchants and shoe sellers indulging in overcharging customers.

He was talking to this scribe after raiding shops in Sector-9 of KDA Town and arresting eight shopkeepers for overcharging. He also fined a hairdresser. Mr Ahmed said that he had called a meeting of tailors after receiving complaints that they were charging Rs1,000 per suit, but it could not decide under which law to punish them.

When asked about high prices of items like artificial jewellery and ladies suits in Miankhel bazaar, he said that they had no mechanism available to check price hike of items like cloth and shoes.

Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2017