SWABI: Four members of the National Assembly’s Special Committee on Agricultural Products here on Thursday held talks with tobacco growers demanding purchase of their crop, but failed to persuade them to end their protest sit-in.

The committee members, ledby MNA Nafeesa Khattak, assured them that all their tobacco products would be purchased by the companies.

However, the growers’ leaders led by Liaquat Yousafzai, central chairman of Tobacco Growers Association Pakistan, said they no longer believed in verbal assurances and the companies should start purchase of the crop directly from the growers like the previous practice.

The committee members came from Islamabad to hold talks with the growers’ leaders who had set up a protest camp in front of a multinational company at Jaganat, Razaar tehsil.

The growers set tobacco bales on fire as a mark of protest on Wednesday and since then they had continued their sit-in here.

Their main demand is that the companies should buy the remaining crop from the local farmers according to the survey conducted by Pakistan Tobacco Board and give up the practice of buying the crop from businessmen only.

HOUSE LOOTED: Unidentified robbers looted the house of a widow in Jalsai village of Chota Lahor tehsil on Wednesday night.

Widow of Sher Bahadar registered an FIR with Tordher police station, stating that the robbers took away four-tola jewellery, Rs 310,000 cash, stamp papers of their shop, one mobile phone and one computer.

She urged the police to trace the robbers and recover the looted items.

RAIN DAMAGES CROP: Torrential rain lashed the district, damaging standing sugarcane and maize crops and causing suspension of power supply in various regions.

The falling of trees on transmission lines forced the Pesco staff to work for the whole day on Thursday to restore power supply as some remote areas remained without power the previous night.

Meanwhile, eight members of the executive committee of Swabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry returned unopposed on Thursday.

They included Niaz Ahmad, Nadeem Azmat, Zakir Ali, Ijaz Akram Bacha, Fazal Rahim, Asifur Rehman, Anwar Zada and Mohammad Israr.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2021