KOHAT: Hundreds of wholesalers and labourers of Awami Shahbaz Gul Shinwari Private Fruit and Vegetable Market took out a big protest rally against the sealing of the facility by the tehsil municipal administration here on Thursday.
The protesters marched from the Hangu Bypass to the TMA building in the city in vehicles and raised slogans against the administration.
During talks with the TMA officials, the office-bearers of the private market association claimed that the Peshawar High Court had allowed a second private market in 2012, but despite that it had been sealed several times.
They told the enforcement officer, Vaqas Ahmed, that the case was now in the Supreme Court about making of bylaws only and not about the operation of the market and as such the orders of sealing was illegal. They said they should be allowed to continue their business till the SC decision and the orders issued for sealing of the market should be withdrawn.
Mr Ahmed and officer regulations said the tehsil municipal officer was in Peshawar and he had conveyed to them that permission of opening of the market could not be granted till the final decision of the SC.
Mr Shinwari said the TMA-run market was incomplete and far away from the city.
The president of the government market, Mohammad Fayyaz, told this correspondent on Thursday that the TMA had built a new vegetable market in 2008 five kilometres from the city centre. He said they had invested a big amount of money and were now suffering heavy losses due to the private market.
CORRUPTION CASE: The anti-corruption court, Hangu, sentenced an official of the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) for making bogus employments on fake signatures of the executive engineer to three years in jail on Thursday.
Assistant director of anti-corruption, Kohat region, Fida Mohammad said in a statement that sub-divisional accountant, Faheemullah of PHED, had been arrested under FIR 2014/3.
The trial court after hearing the case pleaded by senior public prosecutor, Abdul Qudoos Khan, awarded three years sentence with a fine of Rs100,000 to the accused.
PTI CANDIDATE: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf provincial leadership reversed the decision of the party’s district election committee on Thursday and awarded the ticket for the seat of city mayor’s slot to Suleman Shinwari.
The district cabinet had earlier awarded the ticket to Malik Mansoor.
Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2021
