KOHAT: An elders committee of the oil and gas-rich Shakardarra town here has lamented that local lawmakers have failed to execute the promised projects of a grid station and a hospital for last two decades.

Talking to reporters here the other day, committee members, including Brig retired Saifullah, Asif Saifullah, Aslam Khan, former district councillor Jasim Saadat and others, deplored that state minister Sheharyar Khan Afridi had been making false promises for last eight months to bring Prime Minister Imran Khan to inaugurate the grid station and hospital projects.

They denounced that during last seven years MNA Sheharyar Afridi had not launched any big project in the district.

They said there was only one type-C hospital in the town, which lacked facilities. They said the locals had to carry patients all the way to the KDA Teaching Hospital.

The elders pointed out that work on a satellite hospital was started in 2003 under the Asian Development Bank, but it was yet to see the light of the day.

THANKSGIVING RALLY: Members of Zarghun Jalindhar family of Qasim Khel tribe of Darra Adamkhel tribal subdivision took out a thanksgiving rally here the other day after a court annulled a jirga decision to suspend payment of coal royalty to the family.

Malik Hidayatullah Afridi, the head of the family, in a press release alleged that a jirga of some powerful tribesmen had suspended their royalty and also resorted to their social boycott over some issue in 2014.

He said the jirga had imposed inhuman and illegal restrictions on the Jalindhar family which he had challenged in the court of additional district and sessions judge, Kohat.

The court had set aside all the restrictions and ordered that the Jalindhar family be allowed to sell the coal.

Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2020