TOBA TEK SINGH: The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) has released a payment for 200,000 women beneficiaries in Jhang through 100 registered agents, however, beneficiaries are complaining of irregularities in the process.
Beneficiaries are complaining irregularities in agent-based payments and repeatedly reported this to the BISP management over the past several months. The complaints include allegations of illegal deductions by ‘influential’ payment agents, difficulties in accessing designated payment points, and delays in administrative action against them at the local level.
Beneficiaries complained that due to weak on-ground monitoring and the lack of basic facilities at several payment locations, sick, elderly, and physically weak women beneficiaries were facing severe hardship.
Meanwhile, taking notice of public grievances, BISP Punjab Director General Haider Murtaza has directed district authorities to prominently display lists of payment agents along with their addresses at district, tehsil, and other key public places to enhance transparency. The DG warned that any complaint of illegal deductions during the current payment cycle would result in strict action against the concerned bank staff, local BISP officials, and payment agents. He also stressed that payment agents must operate strictly from their approved locations.
CONVICTED: Jaranwala Additional District and Sessions Judge Muhammad Safdar handed down life imprisonment along with a fine of Rs500,000 to a murder case convict on Thursday.
Jaranwala Saddar police said convict Muhammad Saleem of Chak 236 GB had slaughtered his daughter Amna (17) for honour on June 28,2024 as she had relations with a boy of her village.
ACCIDENT: A young man was crushed to death by a speeding tractor trolley near the Central Jail on Jaranwala Road in Faisalabad on Thursday.
Reports said the deceased, identified as Muhammad Shahzad (20) of Jaranwala Chak 273 GB, was crossing the road when he was hit by the incoming tractor trolley.
Meanwhile, a minor girl drowned in a sewage pond in the Malikabad locality on the Jhang Road in Faisalabad.
Reports said deceased Perveen Bibi (2) was playing near the bank of the pond when she suddenly slipped into it and drowned.
Locals held Wasa responsible for her death and said that due to the choked sewerage lines, water had accumulated in small ponds and one of the ponds took the life of an innocent child.
INJURED: Two robbers allegedly opened fire on a retired police sub-inspector during a robbery on Thursday in Gojra and seriously injured him.
Police said Muhammad Ijaz Cheema, a retired SI of Green Town locality, was present in his locality when two robbers on a motorcycle allegedly attempted to rob him at gunpoint. When he resisted, they opened fire and seriously injured him and fled.
WILD BOARS: Around eight wild boars entered the locality of Basti Zahoorabad near Khanewal on Wednesday night creating panic among the residents.
The locals locked themselves in their houses, while the Khanewal Rescue 1122 reached the area. A press release said that Rescue personnel reached the spot as soon as they received the information. It said that they killed all the eight pigs and no casualty was reported except a goat that was injured in their attack.
Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2026
