KOHAT: The civil society has asked the district administration to mobilise the teachers of private and public sector schools and the on-leavegovernment servants for distribution of ration among the poor hit by the lockdown.

Talking to Dawn on Wednesday, chairman of Kohat Awami Tehreek Ameer Khan Afridi, president Habibur Rehman and secretary general Saifullah Afridi said the administration should also involve civil society organisations in the job.

They appealed to the organisations engaged in social work to avoid pasting pictures and videos of people receiving the aid on social media because it hurtd their self-respect.

Meanwhile, traders demanded exemption from payment of rents of the government owned shops, and halving electricity and telephone bills as their businesses have suffered due to lockdown.

The committee’s president Abid Khan also suggested the administration ask the owners of private shops to cut the rents by half.

He said services of former local bodies members should be hired to distribute ration among the affected people.

RATION DISTRIBUTION: The Shahid Afridi Foundation continued distributing relief items among the 1,000 Afghan refugee families on Wednesday.

The foundation’s chief executive officer Irshad Afridi told journalists at a distribution point that ration was distributed among 2,500 families of daily wagers the other day. He said the ration distribution had been going for last eight days. He said ration packaging took about a week.

Irshad Afridi said the charity was honoured to take the noble mission of helping their brothers in times of distress. He said priority was being given to widows and the elderly. He said the charity was also busy in other parts of the country. Afghan refugees thanked the charity for giving them food.

Published in Dawn, April 2nd, 2020