KOHAT: Enraged residents including veiled women staged a protest demonstration under the umbrella of Kohat’s city action committee against the absence of basic civic amenities here the other day.

The protesters regretted that they had been pushed to a point of no return but warned that they would not end the protest until solid guarantees were provided regarding provision of basic needs.

The protesters also included workers of religious and political parties, civil society members, office-bearers of various bazaar unions and local government representatives.

They said that in some areas there was no gas for eight months and the people were being subjected to forced power outage, which has resulted in water shortage in homes and mosques of the city.

They said that it was surprising that Kohat district having dozens of oil and gas wells had no electricity or gas. They said that gas was supplied for two hours in the morning, noon and evening which was illegal and illogical in the production zone.

The protesting women said that the children were forced to go to school without taking breakfast due to absence of natural gas.

They said that they were fed up with false promises of lawmakers and successive administrations to end the gas and power outages, as the situation with the passage of time had turned from bad to worse. They added that local lawmakers had disappointed the voters.

The commissioner of Kohat division, Motasim Billah Shah, called the protest leaders to his office for talks with a request to postpone the agitation and end blockade of the highway.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2025