KOHAT: Two disgruntled leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Kohat chapter have formed their own groups, Dawn has learnt.

Shafi Jan, who had contested the Kohat city mayor’s polls as an independent after being denied the PTI ticket, told a gathering of his supporters here the other day that his recent meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan in Islamabad was shown as if he had patched up his differences with the party, which was wrong.

He clarified that he went there with chairman of parliamentary committee on Kashmir Shehryar Afridi just for the ‘interests’ of Kohat people. He insisted that he was not the one who would strike any underhand deal.

It is to mention here that Shafi Jan had got 25,793 votes in the mayor’s polls with party’s ticket holder, Suleman Shinwari bagging 15,219 votes. Thanks to the division in PTI, the seat went to JUI-F’s Qari Sher Zaman, who got 34,434 votes.

The development had made the prime minister angry over wrong decisions of the ticket distribution committee headed by MPA Ziaullah Bangash. Later, he had suspended Mr Bangash from the post. He had called Shafi Jan to Islamabad and asked him to bury the hatchet and start a new journey with PTI.

In Lachi tehsil too, Ehsan Khan, another disgruntled leader of PTI, had won the chairman’s seat in an independent against the party’s ticket holder.

Similarly, an ‘ideological’ group has also been formed headed by former PTI district president Malik Iqbal.

Mr Iqbal, who had resigned from his post last year after being sidelined, announced to contest the 2023 general elections on NA-32 from the platform of ‘ideological’ group of PTI.

MAN WITH HASHISH HELD: The police here the other day foiled an attempt of smuggling hashish from Orakzai district to southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by arresting a drug trafficker at the Kaghazai checkpost.

Cantonment police SHO Ayatullah Babar said 48 kilogrammes of fine quality hashish concealed in the rooftop of a pick-up van was confiscated during checking of vehicles.

He said the arrested smuggler was identified as Naimat Gul. Later, a case was registered against him under the drug act.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2022