GUJRANWALA, Feb 20: The surplus staff of sales tax and excise departments will be absorbed in other departments and in this regard, the Central Board of Revenue has sent a summary to the prime minister for approval.

The sources said on Thursday that some 3,200 employees of both the departments, including superintendents, deputy superintendents and inspectors, were being declared surplus. These officials will be absorbed in customs intelligence, anti-smuggling squad and income tax department on the basis of their seniority and the service record.

The inefficient officials will be compulsorily retired, the sources said.

MURDERED: A former councillor was shot dead allegedly by rivals over an old enmity here on Thursday.

Ashraf of Buda Gorraya was watching a circus when Sultan and Abdul Latif opened fire on him. He was taken to the local DHQ Civil Hospital from where he was shifted to the Mayo Hospital, Lahore, where he died.

Police are investigating.

LOOTED: Dacoits looted a house in Kotli Matwalian, Wahando, here on Thursday.

Reports said six armed men stormed into the house of two expatriates, Arif and Waris, and locked the inmates in a room. They collected jewellery worth Rs1 million, 20,000 dollars, Rs350,000 in cash, eight wristwatches, three mobile phones and other households and fled on their motorcycles.

Protest: Over 200 brick kiln workers took out a protest procession against kiln owners for not increasing their wages and staged a sit-in outside tehsil Nazim office in Kamoki on Thursday.

The workers of 60 kilns gathered outside the tehsil council office and paraded on the GT Road. Later, they reached the tehsil council offices where they staged a sit-in. They were carrying banners and placard and chanting slogans against the owners. They demanded that their wages should be increased in accordance with the government directive.

They met the tehsil Nazim and told him that the government had fixed their wages at Rs218 per 1,000 bricks but the owners were paying them Rs120 per 1,000 bricks.

They dispersed peacefully when the Nazim assured them that the owners would be called to settle the dispute.

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