PESHAWAR: The district administration on Friday sealed 31 marble factories located on the Warsak Road and arrested their managers for creating pollution in the provincial capital.

According to a statement the factories were sealed during a raid conducted jointly by the district administration and the environment department. The raiding party was headed by additional assistant commissioner Town-2 Mina Zahir.

Seventeen managers of different marble factories were arrested.

The marble factories, it said, were creating environmental issues due to lack of proper filtration plants and releasing the effluent directly into the canals despite prior warnings many times to the relevant people.

It was stated that most of the drains in the area had got clogged due to the overflowing sewage and that the toxic waste was also hurting agricultural activities in the surroundings.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2019