KHYBER: Customs clearing agents at Torkham have demanded lifting of ban on transportation of newborn chicks across the border in pickup vehicles.

Addressing a news conference at Landi Kotal Press Club on Thursday, poultry clearing agents Qari Nazeemullah and Ablaan Ali Shinwari said that around 80 pickup vehicles were in service to take thousands of chicks across the border before outbreak of coronavirus. However, a ban was imposed on them under coronavirus-related SOPs last year, they added.

They said that the ban rendered hundreds of workers jobless as they were directly related to the poultry trade. “Thousands of chicks die of suffocation in long vehicles as they are stuffed into these vehicles by the traders to save transportation cost at the border,” they said.

Qari Nazeemullah said that around 200,000 chicks were exported to Afghanistan on a daily basis but thousands of them died before they crossed the border due to traffic congestion at Torkham. He said that lifting of ban on pick-up vehicles would expedite poultry export to Afghanistan with less casualties alongside minimising traffic congestion.

DEMAND: Scores of pensioners in Landi Kotal have demanded of the government to send them their pension through local post office rather than paying them the amount in banks.

Retired government servants from Zakhakhel, Loe and Kam Shalman, Kukikhel and Pasedkhel told journalists on Thursday that they faced numerous problems while visiting in banks for receipt of pension as the bank branches were already overloaded with business accounts and payments of salaries to government servants.

They demanded revival of the old arrangement to get their through the local post office.

Meanwhile, police in assistance with Rescue 1122 recovered the dead body of a three-year-old girl from a deep well in Jamrud on Thursday.

They said that the girl, Sana, went missing from her home in Sur Kamar three days ago. She was traced dead in a well near her house. They said that investigation was launched to ascertain the cause of her death.

Published in Dawn, February 5th, 2021