KOHAT: The famous Kohat stream (Toi) originating from Upper Orakzai flowing for thousands of years is fast losing its original face due to massive encroachments, which also result in floods during heavy rains.

In the past people swam in it and drank its water bit it has become so polluted now with the city’s severe falling in it that hardly a living creature could survive in it.

The width of Kohat Toi narrowed down due to encroachments as some influential people set up housing colonies and orchards in its way that were washed away during floods but the greedy people again usurped its course, Mohammad Shoaib, tehsil municipal officer, told this scribe.

He said that the land grabbers were influential people. Whenever officials tried to demolish those houses in Hafizabad area, inside the left bank of the Toi, the residents made hue and cry that they had spent millions on purchasing the land and constructing the abodes, he added.

The steam irrigates thousands of acres of land before reaching Kohat city. Womenfolk in the tribal district also wash clothes in its water, which comes from mountains and crosses hundreds of rural communities.

It was a general opinion that Sadda and Thall waterways coming from Hindukush and Zera River from lower Orakzai constitute Kohat Toi but they had three totally different routes. The impression was due to the fact that all water originated from Orakzai and Kurram ran along the Kohat-Parachinar-Hangu roads.

It adopts the Kohat Toi shape after passing through areas of Hangu-Shnawari, Zargari. Dozens of springs also join it.

Inayat Orakzai, a local resident, when asked about the low level of the Kohat Toi for several decades, said that it was all due to climate change. Once upon a time upper Orakzai area of Mamozai received heavy snowfall and there were thick forests but now Toi raged after three to four years when the area received heavy rainfall.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2020