LANDI KOTAL (Khyber Agency), Jan 18: The Landi Kotal post office has been operating without any facilities over the last two decades. Established before the creation of Pakistan, the post office is being run with only one postman while the clerk posted here is allegedly drawing his salary without attending office for over a decade.

Even though the population of the Khyber Agency Headquarters has increased manifold during the last five decades no additional postman has been posted in the post office. Besides, letters are not distributed beyond the Landi Kotal Bazaar and the army camp’s vicinity.

People residing in far-off areas like Loe Shalman, Karamna, Brag and Bazaar Zakhakhel have to travel all the way to the post office to look for their mail. Even the Pakistan-Afghanistan border at Torkhum is without a postman. In the absence of village postmen ,telephone subscribers receive their phone bills directly from the telephone exchange as a result of which many bills get misplaced due to mishandling and inefficiency.

Area residents demanded the authorities concerned to establish post offices in Bazaar-Zakhakhel, Loe Shalman and Torkhum along with appointing of at least three village postmen.