SWABI: A local non-government organisation disclosed on Monday that people in some localities of Adina union council had plainly refused to allow their women to exercise their right of vote in the upcoming local government elections.

Briefing journalists and political parties` activists here, members of the NGO, Takal Welfare Organisation, said that they conducted a survey and identified the areas where women were prohibited from participating in the polls.

Local leaders of PTI, QWP, PML-N and Swabi Qaumi Mahaz were in attendance, who called for full participation of women in the elections.

Mohammad Khushdil, the NGO`s assistant district coordinator, said they had identiñed nine localities where women faced restrictions.

He said people of Adina union council in Razaar tehsil and Sheikh Dheri village in Chota Lahor tehsil were not ready to allow their women to cast vote during the LG polls.

However, he said some people in Sheikh Dheri agreed to let their women use their rightof franchise after the NGO members persuaded them to do so.

`We have written a letter to the Election Commission of Pakistan and the officials of the district administration highlighting the matter,` said Mr Khushdil.

Masood Jabar, former provincial deputy general secretary of QWP, said the government should take the responsibility of ensuring that every woman in the province cast her vote.

Iftikhar Ahmad Khan, PMLN`s district president, said there might be some villages in the district where women might not be able to exercise their right of vote due to some cultural restrictions. However, he said overall there was no bar on women participation in polls in Swabi.

LABOUR LAWS: Pakistan Worl(ers Federation (PWF) and Gadoon Worl
Asad Qaisar, Speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, MPA Babar Saleem,PWF national coordinator Shaukat Ali Anjum, and a large number of workers attended a programme organised by PWF to pay homage to workers who laid down their lives in Chicago in 1886. The PWF held a rally from Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway interchange to district headquarters, Swabi.

The workers` leaders said the PML-N-led federal government was dominated by industrialists, who didn`t want to protect workers` rights.

PROTEST: Students of pharmacy department, University of Swabi, on Monday staged a protest demonstration against the failure of the varsity administration to provide adequate facilities in laboratories.

About 250 students gathered in the campus and then marched to the administration block where they stage d a demonstration in front of vicechancellor`s office.

They said there were no animal house, no chemicals and no harebrain plant in the laboratories.

The vice-chancellor wanted to hold talks with the protesting students but they refused.

The students didn`t allow faculty members to enter the pharmacy department.