LAKKI MARWAT: Members of Bannu Bachao Tehreek, or save Bannu movement, have termed the Kurram Tangi dam project detrimental to the people, especially farmers, saying it will reduce water in the Kurram River and turn fertile land in the district barren.

They were speaking during a jirga held in Mamakhel area of Bannu on Wednesday. Elders from Mamakhel, Dardareez and Havaid also attended the meeting. The speakers included Syed Qaiser Abbas, Salim Khan, Malik Rabbani Khan and others.

They said they were opposing the project because it would reduce their water rights they had been enjoying since the British era. They alleged that the dam being built in Waziristan district would deprive the people, especially the famers of Bannu district, from their water rights. They added that the dam projectwould badly affect the water table in the southern district.

OUTLAWS HELD: Police here on Wednesday claimed to have arrested four outlaws in the rural areas bordering the Betani tribal subdivision.

An official said that the police raided suspected hideouts of criminals in the limits of Tajori police station and arrested four outlaws identified as Umer Ali, Umer Khan, Rafeed Khan and Rafiq. He said that the four belonged to Betani tribal subdivision.

The official said the police seized two assault rifles, four repeater guns, two pistols and bullets from them and registered separate cases in Tajori police station.

LAID TO REST: Provincial Management Service Officers Association, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter, president and additional secretary minerals department, Farhatullah Marwat, was laid to rest in the graveyard of his native Takhtikhel village here.

Government officials, area elders and local people attended the funeral prayers of late Farhatullah, who had died due to cardiac arrest in Peshawar on Monday.

Meanwhile, an FC official died when a wall collapsed in Tajori town on Wednesday. A rescue source said the injured official, identified as Najibullah, died on way to the THQ hospital, Naurang.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2021