MANSEHRA: A man chopped off the nose and a finger of his stepmother with a dagger after she refused to transfer her land in his name in Satbanni area of Balakot here the other day, the police said on Sunday.

`We have lodged an FIR against a man, his father, an uncle and a quack for being involved in the crime,` SHO Balakot police station Malik Asif told reporters.

He said Mohammad Yasir with the help of his father and uncle chopped off the nose and a finger of her stepmother, Tahira Perveen.

He added the accused shifted her to a private clinic, where a quack, Mohammad Rasheed, stitched her nose and finger without administering her anesthesia. He said the accused took her back to their house, where her condition deteriorated.

Someone informed the police about the incident, he said, adding that the police shifted her to King Abdullah Teaching Hospital.

`We have lodged the FIR against the main accused, his father, an uncle and the quack,` Mr Asif said.

He said Yasir and Rasheed had got pre-arrest bail from a local court.

The SHO said the accused wanted to transfer the woman`s land to his name, but she refused.Meanwhile, the woman, belonging to Karachi, said she was living here along with her mother.

She demanded of the provincial police chief, DIG Hazara and the district police officer to compensate her with justice. She said her stepson wanted to kill her over a piece of land.

CLEANLINESS DRIVE: The Mansehra tehsil municipal administration on Sunday launched a cleanliness drive in the city and its suburbs to clear the choked sewerage lines and nullahs.

Speaking at a ceremony on the occasion, tehsil municipal officer Mazhar Muzafar Awan said the TMA`s sanitation and other staff along with shovels, excavator machines and tractor-trolleys initiated the cleanliness drive and cleared a nullah and sewerage lines in Dub and adjoining localities.

`The cleanliness drive has been launched under the Khushal Khyber Pakhtunkhwa programme,` he said, adding drains from the Punjab Chowk to the Paracha Mall were cleared.

He said choked drains overflowed onto the KKH during rains, spreading foul smell and troubling motorists and pedestrians.

He said the TMA teams had also started fumigating the areas cleared of filth.

The TMO said garbage dumps were also being removed from streets.

`Traders and residents should extend support in making the city and its suburbs clean,` he said.

Mr Awan said owners of buildings were also served with notices for discharging the affluent onto the roads and streets.