KHYBER: Pakistani authorities on Monday deported 85 Afghan nationals via the Torkham border for not possessing travel documents, officials said.

They said these Afghans were arrested under Foreigners Act at the border point on separate occasions for not possessing legal travel documents while crossing into Pakistan.

They were kept at Landi Kotal sub-jail and were deported after completion of legal process. They were handed over to Afghan authorities at the border crossing.

Meanwhile, clearance of import and export goods at the Torkham border continued at a snail’s pace due to a technical fault in one of the electronic scanners. Customs officials said the scanner installed for scanning import goods went out of order soon after the border crossing was reopened for trade on Saturday after remaining closed for six days.

They said the sudden breakdown of the import scanner multiplied their woes as they already were faced with a backlog of nearly 7,000 loaded vehicles due to the six-day border closure.

Officials said all the loaded vehicles were now scanned through one scanner, which prolonged the goods clearance process. They said the matter was brought into the notice of National Logistics Cell authorities, who had promised to fix the problem in a few days.

Meanwhile, water supply to most parts of Landi Kotal was abruptly suspended when the Tribal Electric Supply Company disconnected power supply to the water pumping machine at Landi Khana due to non-payment of bills.

Tesco officials contended the public health department owed Rs10 million in electricity dues to the company for last four months.

Sources said power disconnection caused water shortage at Landi Kotal Bazaar, the District Headquarters Hospital, the army camp and the degree college along with hundreds of private residences.

Officials of public health department could not be approached for comment about their ‘failure’ to deposit electricity bills within due dates.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2023