TOBA TEK SINGH: The Pakistan Railway (PR) authorities demolished the building of pre-Partition era Khanora Railway Station on Saturday.

Every blow to the building dashed the hopes of residents of six villages of Toba Tek Singh and Jhang districts located around the station to see a train stop and leave the place in the future. The residents say they had attachment with the station.

One of the residents of Chak 407-JB, Khanora, Advocate Chaudhry Afzal Munir, told Dawn their elders who migrated from Indian district of Hushiarpur in the eighteenth century to Khanora had been using trains at this railway station since 1904 when the station was constructed. He said they were allotted farmlands by the then British rulers to turn deserted land into fertile farms.

In 1904, the Khanora railway station was built after laying a track on Shorkot Cantonment-Jhang-Sargodha-Rawalpindi line.

He said that until three years, six trains were running on the section and stopped here facilitating scores of students and government and private office goers. Gradually, the number of trains on this section was reduced to two -- Sandal Express (runs between Multan and Sargodha) and Hazara Express (runs between Havelian and Karachi).

The station lost trains’ stops during the regime of Khwaja Saad Rafique.

Councillor Chaudhry Naveed Sabir said he wrote several letters to Mr Rafiq and the railways authorities but to no avail. The present regime demolished the railways station.

He demanded Prime Minister Imran Khan order the PR authorities to construct a new building of the railway station and restore it as the people of this area had to cover extra distance from here to reach Jhang and Shorkot by road.

ARRESTED: The ACE arrested on Saturday DC office’s clerk for accepting bribe.

An ACE team, headed by judicial magistrate Abid Islam, caught junior clerk Khizer Hayat and seized the marked bills of Rs5,000 which he received from the complainant for the redressal of his problem.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2018