SIALKOT, July 29: A sigh of relief coupled with jubilation was prevailing in every government office of this district and their incumbents were seen felicitating each other after Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif wrapped his two-day visit up and flew back to Lahore without causing `much damage’ to local bureaucracy.
The government officials were enjoying as none of them earned any suspension from service — the most dreadful fear they were anticipating prior to Sharif’s arrival here on Monday.
However, the chief minister’s visit gave the area a new look, as government buildings, roads, sewers remained neat and clean and in complete order, thanks to ‘untiring’ sweepers and gardeners of tehsil municipal administrations who remained on their toes throughout the couple of days.
“We have gained a lot by the chief minister’s visit by loosing nothing,” Sialkot DCO Capt Atta Muhammad Khan told Dawn.
The DCO confirmed that the chief minister did not suspend even a single government official or employee during his stay in the district.
Earlier, sudden change of venue of the chief minister’s open court in Daska irked a large number of people, including women, as he held the open court in Municipal Stadium instead of Government Postgraduate College for Women designated for the purpose.
Hundreds of people had gathered in the college since Tuesday morning to see and meet the chief minister in hot and humid weather.
However, to their utter disappointment, the chief minister did not turn up there and heard applicants for around half of an hour in close vicinity of helipad in the stadium minutes before he flew back to Lahore in the afternoon.
During the open court, the chief minister directed the Gujranwala Regional Police Officer Zulfiqar Ahmad Cheema to hold inquiries on all the applications presented to him against the local police.
Mian Muhammad Saeed, a local jeweller, told the chief minister that some unknown miscreants had fired two rocket shells on his house in Gulistan Colony around a month ago allegedly for refusing to pay extortion money and the City police were reluctant to arrest the extortionists. The chief minister ordered immediate arrest of the suspects.
Daska Tehsil Nazim Haji Nasir Mehmood Cheema of the PML-Q also called on the chief minister and announced his joining the PML-N.
Earlier, Chief Minister Sharif visited Variyo House in Sialkot Cantonment to offer condolences on the demise of former MNA Chaudhry Akhtar Ali Variyo with his family. The chief minister hailed the political services of Akhtar Variyo and offered fateha for the departed soul.