KHYBER: The ownership of newly-built cabins and kiosks at Jamrud Bazaar under official beautification plan has become a bone of contention among various stakeholders for the last few days.

Chief Minister Mohammad Sohail Afridi, who was elected MPA from Jamrud-cum-Bara constituency in 2024 elections, had announced a beautification plan for Jamrud Bazaar worth Rs45 million that included removal of all encroachments from the bazaar and establishing metal cabins and kiosks at an appropriate location to accommodate the shopkeepers affected by the anti-encroachment drive.

Sources told this scribe that upon completion of the cabins and kiosks project, local elders and traders exerted their pressure on district administration to distribute those cabins among them as they would do during the era of erstwhile Fata.

Initially, shopkeepers association had suggested to planning and development department to construct a parking plaza at the site of illegal kiosks and cabins removed during the anti-encroachment campaign.

They argued that traffic flow was badly hampered owing to parking of vehicles on both sides of the main road near Bab-i-Khyber while a number of illegal taxi stands were also established on the main road.

They said that shopkeepers association of the bazaar was firmly behind those, who had lost their shops and kiosks during the anti-encroachment drive as they believed that the affected shopkeepers, mostly vegetable and fruit vendors, were genuinely entitled to the ownership of the newly-raised metal structures.

They also suggested to the authorities concerned to hand over the new site to Jamrud tehsil municipal authority with complete mandate of first compensating the affected shopkeepers and vendors and then putting to auction the remaining cabins and kiosks with the money collected as rent should be spent on the maintenance of local bazaar by TMA.

Local elders, however, argue that they also deserved to be given due share as owners of cabins and kiosks as were they treated prior to merger of tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Officials insisted that the entire Jamrud Bazaar was state property and its previous owners were duly compensated thus elders and Maliks were not entitled to be given such largess anymore.

Meanwhile, the affected shopkeepers have threatened to take the matter to court if they were denied their legitimate share in the new cabins and kiosks as they were rendered jobless besides suffering huge losses due to their eviction from previous positions.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2026