TOBA TEK SINGH, July 6: Cotton crop condition in the district is satisfactory because growers are keen to get a better yield, district agriculture officer Mian Shafiq Muhammad told Dawn.

He said last year cotton was cultivated on 91,000 acres while this year the acreage was 158,000 acres.

So far, he said, the crop was free from harmful insets. That was why, he said, the farmers had been advised to delay the first application of insecticides.

According to him, farmers had been educated in new crop care methods through training programmes by farm experts in 358 villages of the district.

About complaints of fake pesticides, he said that during last one year 178 samples of pesticides were sent to the Lahore laboratory and except one all (samples) were fit.

CONDEMNED: Former MNA Hamza has condemned the attack and torture of Fesco’s Gojra SDO allegedly by the men of MNA Chaudhry Amjad Ali Warraich to teach him a lesson for arresting his (MNA’s) manager Chaudhry Ghulam Mustafa Warriach in an electricity theft case.

Addressing a public meeting in Gojra, under the auspices of Gojra PML-N city chapter, he stated that voters of Gojra area had given respect to three brothers — Amjad Warraich, Khalid Warriach and Bilal Warriach — and elected them as MNA, tehsil nazim and MPA, respectively. But they delivered nothing to them except lawlessness.

Speaking on the occasion, PML-N MPA from Gojra Chaudhry Azhar Nadeem Gujjar also condemned the incident.