LOWER DIR: Jamaat-i-Islami candidate for PK-13 constituency and former MNA Sahibzada Yaqub Khan has said the people of Malakand will strongly resist the imposition of any tax in the region.

He was addressing a public meeting held in Lajbok area here on Friday.

The former lawmaker said the JI would hold a massive protest rally against the imposition of taxes in Chakdara on July 30, where party chief Sirajul Haq and other central leaders would speak.

Mr Yaqub said the rulers had ‘mortgaged’ the country to the International Monetary Fund by agreeing to its hard conditions for the $3 billion loan. He said the JI would hold the current and former rulers accountable for looting national wealth if it was given the opportunity to rule the country.

The JI leader said the country was passing through a difficult situation but the rulers were busy in ending their corruption cases and concealing their ‘loot’. He said the record inflation, unemployment and devaluation of Pakistani currency had broken the back of the poor.

Also on Friday the JI Youth Wing organised a motorcycle rally to mobilise workers and the general public to participate in the July 30 rally in Chakdara.

JOIN PML-N: Several political activists on Friday announced to join Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz during a gathering held in Ouch Gharbi.

Party leader, Eng Faizullah Khan, on the occasion, welcomed the new entrants. He said PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif would soon return to Pakistan to lead the party’s election campaign.

Meanwhile, PML-N Lower Dir general secretary Sardar Javed Tajak Advocate has rejected the establishment of a toll plaza in Chakdara.

Talking to journalists, he said the government should reconstruct the dilapidated Chakdara-Timergara Road and provide civic facilities to local residents before establishing the toll plaza.

DEMAND: The all primary school teachers’ association has threatened to observe class boycott and come onto the roads if the caretaker provincial government fails to upgrade teachers before August 15.

The demand was made during a meeting held in Timergara with the association’s district president Qazi Habibullah in the chair.

On the occasion, Qazi Habibullah said the previous PTI government had issued a notification regarding upgradation of teachers with effect from July 1, but the caretaker government was not ready to implement the order.

In a separate development, a man identified as Usman Khan, 31, a resident of Lal Qila, was killed when unknown persons opened fire on him on the Maidan Bypass Road in Odigram the other day.

The attackers escaped from the scene.

A Rescue 1122 team shifted the body to the District Headquarters Hospital, Timergara.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2023