HARIPUR: A woman was allegedly strangled to death by her husband and stepchildren in urban locality of Khalabat Township, police said here on Sunday.

Khalabat SHO Siddique Shah said that after information from local people, he reached the home of Samar Gul, an Afghan refugee, and found that the body of Perven Bibi, 38, his second wife, was floating in the ground water tank of his rented house.

He said that the neck of the woman was blackened, indicating that she was strangled on the night between Saturday and Sunday. He said that her fingers and arms also carried abrasions that she suffered while resisting.

The body was shifted to trauma centre where the doctors, who carried out autopsy, confirmed that the body carried marks of strangulating.

The SHO said that the woman had four children from previous marriage and entered into nuptial knot with Samar Gul, who was also married with grown up children.

Police registered a case against her husband Samar Gul, stepdaughter and son-in-law.

ACTION: The labour department took action against 15 private security agencies for paying their employees less than the minimum wages fixed by the government.

The deputy director of the department, Faizullah Khan, on the complaint of security guards, inspected record of 15 firms providing services to different government, semi-government and private institutions in Hazara division and found them paying their employees less than the minimum wages.

“They are paying Rs12,000 to Rs15,000 per month to their security guards which is clear violation of provincial government’s notification of Rs21,000 minimum wages for unskilled workers,” he told Dawn.

The official said that challans of 100 workers of the security companies were submitted in the court of labor judge, who would summon them.

He said that his office also served notices on 80 industrial units of Hattar Industrial Estate and surrounding areas, asking them to provide record of their payment to their workers within 10 days.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2022