KOHAT: Elders from a far-flung village in Ghorazai Payan area here have demanded basicfacilitiesinthelocalgirlsandboysschools and an end to unannounced power loadshedding and gas outages and low pressure.

In a joint message on Saturday, retired Subedar Zahoor Khan, Haji Ikhtiar Khan, Khudai Khidmatgar, Haji Rehman Shah, retired Subedar Abdul Wahid and Wajid Khan said instead of goats and hens, law minister Aftab Alam should provide children with books and pens for their learning.

They complained about the shortages of rooms, drinking water, furniture and staff in government schools and demanded immediate measures to address the issue.

POWER CUTS: Office-bearers of the Kohat Chamber of Commerce and Industry have complained about unannounced power outages at the Small Industrial Estate and warned if smooth electric supply wasn`t ensured, they would hand over the keys of factories to the commissioner as a token of protest.

In a statement, they said under the law, neither power supply could be suspended on thefeeder of an industrial estate without prior permission nor could domestic conneetions be given electricity from it, but surprisingly, Kohat`s Small Industrial Estate was subjected to loadshedding for unidentified reasons.

The chamber leaders claimed that the industrial estate`s feeder had zero line losses.

They said power outages increased in the last week of every month, causing massive losses to factory owners.

The chamber office-bearers regretted the factories` dependence on costly LPG for more than a decade despite the digging of land for laying pipelines eight years ago.

They added that all their efforts to encourage more investors to establish industriesforstrengtheningthelocaleconomy were going to waste.

The KCCI leaders regretted that on one hand, the federal and provincial governments were trying to promote industrialisation but on the other, factories were subjected to power supplycuts. They complained againstauthorities over failure to address the issue and said they would take it up with the federal energy ministerand Pesco chief for corrective measures.

The chamberleader said industrial growth was the only way to create more and more employment opportunities.

SENTENCED: A local court awarded life sentences to two accused, including an excise official, for smuggling drugs the other day.

The additional sessions judge-IV handed out prison terms to Irfan and Mohammad Vaqas and fined them Rs500,000 each.

In 2023, a police team, led by SHO Fareed Khan, stopped a pick-up vehicle, bearing an excise department insignia, near the Eagle Fort in Darra Adamkhel tehsil and recovered two kilogrammes of ice drug and 8.5 kilogrammes of heroin on inspection.

The drug`s recovery led to the arrest of Mohammad Vaqas, an excise department official from Mohammad Nagar area in Kohat, and Irfan from Charsadda.

The detainees were booked under the Control of Narcotics Substance Act. Correspondent