KOHAT, Oct 16: District coordination officer Shahidullah Khan has stopped work on two monuments being built here at a cost Rs6.6 million due to alleged corruption and wastage of public funds.

One of the monuments is attributed to the founder of Khudai Khidmatgar Tehrik, late Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and the other to a less known leader of the movement.

Sources quoted the DCO as saying that the actual cost of the monument of a little known khudai khidmatgar, Shehanshah Wali, which was being constructed at the old bus stand chowk, was not more than Rs300,000. However, the authorities had approved Rs3.6 million from the fund of MNA Khursheed Begum for its construction.

A local leader of Awami National Party, Shahabullah, had proposed the construction of one monument in Hangu chowk having three pillars and a globe atop them with a sketch of Abdul Ghaffar Khan.

When asked about the matter, Shahabullah said that according to his proposal the sketch of the leader had to be adorned with gold and silver work and the cost of the project was calculated to be Rs3 million.

Asked about spending money on such projects, he justified it by saying that Abdul Ghaffar Khan was their spiritual and political leader and moreover it was the government of ANP in the province.

The intellectuals and majority of the people of Kohat have been demanding of the government to build a monument or dedicate any corner of university hall to the legendary poet late Ahmed Faraz and former West Pakistan chief justice late Mohammad Rustam Kayani, but such suggestions were ignored.

When the city fathers demolished the famous and historical Jinnah library and constructed a commercial plaza it forced Ahmed Faraz to remorsefully announce that he would not come to his hometown, Kohat, in his life.