KHYBER: The district administration has constituted a three-member committee to probe issuance of fake domicile certificates to students aspiring for admission in medical colleges.

A notification issued from Khyber House said that the committee would comprise additional deputy commissioner, district education officer and assistant commissioner concerned for three sub-divisions of Bara, Jamrud and Landi Kotal.

The committee was formed after some genuine domicile holders of Khyber alleged anomalies in issuance of domicile certificates to at least seven students, who were not permanent residents of the tribal district.

Sanaullah Shinwari, a spokesman for students aspiring for admission in medical colleges, told Dawn that none of the suspected seven non-local students ever resided or studied in Khyber but fraudulently acquired domiciles of the district to get their names registered on the merit list for admission in any medical college.

He said that all the genuine residents of Khyber reserved the right to move court if the issuance of fake domicile certificates was not properly investigated.

Mr Shinwari said that talented and deserving students of Khyber would lose their seats in the medical colleges if authorities failed to remove names of non-locals from the list of candidates, who had applied for admission in medical colleges.

The notification said that the committee would submit its recommendations regarding fake domicile certificates within seven days. The head of domicile branch in Khyber House was directed to provide all the relevant record to the committee.

Earlier, Deputy Commissioner Mehmud Aslam Wazir told Dawn that domicile was the legal right of every resident of Khyber and anyone having any objection to issuance of fake document would be duly probed.

“If found fake, such documents could be challenged at any time and at any forum and thus negligible chances of any wrong doing by the concerned officials,” he said.

The official said that he personally received such complaints and he would look into the matter to remove all the apprehensions of the students.

student shot dead: Unidentified gunmen killed a young college student in Landi Kotal here on Monday night.

The police said that body of Zahid Shah, a second year student, was found near the railway track in Mazreena locality of Sultan Khel early on Sunday morning. They said that the gunmen had shot him thrice in the head from a close range, adding empty cartridge casings and a pistol were found lying near the body.

The body was initially shifted to local hospital and was later dispatched to the Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar for postmortem.

Family members said that they had no enmity with anyone and were shocked with the brutal murder of young Zahid Shah.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2021