KOHAT: The Lachi police arrested a drug smuggler impersonating an excise inspector along with an armed bodyguard while carrying hashish and opium in a vehicle on the Indus Highway on Sunday.

The police also recovered a pistol from the possession of Faisal Khan Bangash, and a Kalashnikov from his bodyguard namely Khanzeb.

On a tip-off, SHO Jamshed Ali stopped a Land Cruiser driven by Faisal with an armed man sitting on the front seat next to him.

During checking of the vehicle, the police found 132kg hashish and 30kg opium. The police said value of the seized contraband was over Rs10 million.

Both the accused were shifted to the police station where a case was registered against them.

In a separate development, the civil society activists from Garhi Jaat area have removed dried trees and filled all the ditches creating room for new graves in the centuries-old Sawa Lakh graveyard.

They said they had also installed hand pumps and carved out a short-cut between the two ‘Janazagahs’ (funeral places).

Talking to journalists, former nazim Mohammad Iqbal and others said they had collected Rs750,000 from people and raised another Rs150,000 by selling the timber for the purpose.

He said people were finding no space in the graveyard to bury their dead as the TMA had failed to provide the promised piece of land for a new graveyard in the area.

He claimed that with the filling of depressions space for about 450 to 500 new graves had been created in the graveyard.

SCHOOLS UPGRADED: On the demands of the local residents, adviser to the chief minister on information technology Ziaullah Bangash has upgraded the girls middle school, College Abad, to higher secondary school, and girls primary school, Sherpao, to middle school.

A statement issued here on Sunday said work on construction of additional classrooms in the schools would start soon.

Meanwhile, a meeting of the officials of the education and C&W departments the other day gave a go-ahead to the demolition of the hostel of the comprehensive high school for constructing a new building.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2021