KOHAT: The police on Sunday foiled an attempt to smuggle heavy and light arms and ammunition from North Waziristan tribal district to the Darra Adamkhel tribal subdivision of Kohat.

An official said the personnel of Mohammad Riaz police station stopped a car near the Kohat tunnel, and recovered an anti-aircraft gun, three Kalashnikovs, and 2,700 cartridges during search of it. The police arrested its driver, Mohammad Kaleem, who told interrogators that he was smuggling the weapons from North Waziristan to Darra Adamkhel. A case under the Arms Act was registered against him.

Recently, four policemen of Darra Adamkhel were arrested while carrying mortars, rocket launchers, rocket shells, hand grenades, anti-aircraft guns and cartridges from Orakzai district to Darra.

SCHOOLS: The dilapidated buildings of a girls and a boys primary school in Seni Gumbat area here pose a serious threat to the lives of about 1,200 students, complained local residents on Sunday, calling for their immediate reconstruction to avoid a major incident.

Sajid Iqbal, chairman of a welfare body in Gumbat, told Dawn on telephone that they had informed the authorities concerned about the bad condition of the school buildings, but no action was taken as yet.

He said the overcrowded buildings with the six-room boys school and seven-room girls school posed a major peril to 1,200 children. He said the students crammed in classrooms as one room each had been allocated for the staff.

He said heads of the schools had compiled reports and sent them to the district office of the education department months ago, but no further action was taken on the reports.

An elder, Malik Ahmed lamented that the priorities of lawmakers and local body members were inaugurating streets, drains, transformers, supply of gas, and roads to muster the support of voters, and not the uplift of the education sector.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2023