KOHAT: The business community has demanded of the authorities to shift some of the schools from the heart of the city to help ease traffic rush caused by scores of school vans while dropping and picking students.

Bazaar union president Mohammad Abid Khan told Dawn that vans dropping and picking students at three educational institutions, including government postgraduate college for women No 1, three girls’ high schools, a boys high school and a primary school, created traffic mess in the morning and in the afternoon as these institutions were located on the same road.

Arab Jab, the in-charge of traffic wardens, said the problem aggravated when trucks and goods transport vehicles entered the bazaar. He said they had to resort to one-way traffic from government school for boys No 2 and girls schools No 1, 2, 3 and from degree college for women, which also resulted in traffic congestion.

He said a doctors’ hospital constructed recently without a parking lot also added to traffic snarl-ups.

Arab Jan said traffic jams continued for hours on the Peshawar bypass road where several schools were located.

He suggested that the education department shift half of the institutions outside the city to address the grave issue.

To a question, he said the IDPs influx had also added to the problem as the tribesmen had purchased hundreds of pick-ups and rickshaws to earn livelihood whereas the roads were too narrow to take the extra pressure.

TRANSGENDER PERSONS PROTEST: The transvestite community of Kohat took out a protest rally on Sunday against the police for banning their activities.

The transgender persons passed through the main bazaar chanting slogans against the police, saying the cops took away musical instruments and disrupted their programmes forcibly, thus depriving them of their only source of living.

They regretted that they were also looked down upon by the people.

When contacted, district police officer Wahid Mehmood told Dawn that the ban on movement of transgender individuals had been imposed on public complaints. He said the people objected to high-pitched music played during the nighttime and to “obscenity” spread by the community members in the area.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2019