KOHAT: Thousands of Pesco consumers living in villages here on Kohat-Hangu highway being given electricity from Hangu grid station have demanded permanent solution to the problem of extremely low voltage which has made their lives miserable for years.

They have been protesting against 30 to 40 volts power especially during summer due to overloaded system because 25 per cent of Kohat had also been put on the same Hangu grid station.

Area nazims Zaheer Hussain and Bilal Hussain and district councillor Mian Shah Raza said that the most affected areas were Marai, Ustarzai, Mitha Khan, Kamsam and Storsam in Kohat, and the nearby Raisisan and Juzara in Hangu.

They said that the areas had been promised a separate grid station which was being delayed despite their appeals to the government and elected representatives. They said that unless a separate grid was installed for the villages on Hangu highway in Kohat the problem would persist.

Other local government representatives, including Najamul Hassan, Ali Hassan, Ishtiaq Ali and Dilshad Khan, said that they had got a new feeder at Mitha Khan a year ago to which all villages were connected, but even then the issue of low voltage was not resolved which had its source at Hangu.

Mr Zaheer said that all of his colleagues assembled and put forward the problem to the chief minister on the 7th of Ramazan who directed the commissioner to provide relief to the people during Ramazan and address the issue permanently.

He argued that whenever they took to the roads and protested the officials came to them to open the road and restored the voltage, but after a week or so the problem re-emerged which clearly proved that the voltage was kept low intentionally.

GANG BUSTED: Police have busted a three-member gang belonging to Hangu district and recovered 12 motorcycles stolen from different cities and tribal districts.

DSP city Alamzeb Khan told mediapersons that the SHO city traced the alleged gang leader, Bilal Ahmed, in the city and seized a stolen motor cycle from him. During interrogation, he disclosed the names of other members of the gang who were arrested from Hangu and indentified as Hazrat Bilal and Mohammad Adil of Ganjiono Kallay.

On their information, the police teams recovered 12 stolen motorcycles from, Kohat, Karak, Hangu, Orakzai and Kurram districts.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2019