KOHAT: The shopkeepers shut down the main bazaar after a scuffle with handcart owners over encroachment of the road, creating hurdles to thousands of buyers from Punjab visiting Urs of Ghamkol Zinda Pir.

The bazaars get teamed every year on the occasion where a large number of people come and take with them dry fruit, imported electronics items, blankets, foreign crockery, etc.

The handcarts had blocked the Bannu chowk leaving little space for the buyers to move freely. The shopkeepers asked them to leave the place, but they started abusing them. They said they also paid the fee to the tehsil municipal administration therefore they had equal right to stand in the bazaar. Some traders from both sides beat up each other after which the bazaar was closed.

Tehsil municipal administration officer Mohammad Shoeb banned the entry of handcarts into the bazaar. Tajir grand alliance president Haji Abid said the TMA had given hundreds of licences to the handcarts who left their designated places and entered the bazaar illegally.

POLICE ACTION: Police recovered a stolen vehicle besides seizing weapons being smuggled to southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from Darra Adamkhel on the Indus Highway the other day.

Acting on a complaint of a citizen, the cantonment police raided a house in Miangan Colony and recovered his Suzuki pick-up. They also arrested the accused, identified as Khalaq Nawaz of Karak. He was presented in the court which gave him to police on physical remand.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2020