KOHAT: The consumers have decried electricity loadshedding of 12 hours in the city areas and gas outages of 15 hours across the Kohat district.

They complained that they had been sustaining unannounced power outages for long hours. They said that electricity supply was suspended from 6am to 9am, then from 10am to 11am and from 2pm to 7pm.

`Electricity supply is particularly erratic during the night, troubling the people, especially children and elderly, who cannot sleep amid the hot weather and mosquitoes,` complained Mr Hamid, a resident of the city.

Hadi Burhan, another resident, said that he had bought a battery for uninterrupted power supply (UPS) three years ago for Rs19,000, but when it stopped working, he went to the bazaar to buy a fresh one, but couldn`t do so as its price had shot up to Rs45,000.

A shopkeeper, Dur-i-Kamil, said the steep rise in prices of batteries was because most parts were imported at exorbitant rates due to the plunging value of the rupee. The consumers also complained about 15 hours of gas suspensions, causing them immense trouble to prepare meals.

ARREST: The police arrested a constable of Frontier Reserve Police for selling ice drug and heroin here on Sunday.

SHO Jarma police Sohail told Dawn that the arrested constable, Akram, was deployed at the Kohat prison. A case was registered against him under the Drug Act.

NOTICES: The Gumbat tehsil municipal administration has served notices on owners of several commercial buildings and houses over illegal constructions, directing them to raze them on their own or face their demolition by the civic body.

A statement issued here on Sunday said the municipal body`s inspector Wahid ur Rehman and assistant building inspector Aziz Malik visited the bazaar and residential areas, and gave the owners a week`s deadline to pull down the structures. Correspondent