MULTAN: Two Christians were shot dead allegedly by their rivals at Shanti Nagar in Khanewal on Wednesday night.

The firing incident created panic in the community but it later transpired that the suspects also were Christians, who settled old score.

Akash and Nawazish were leaving the Salvation Army Church after prayers late on Wednesday when Sajid Masih, Rashi Masih and Allah Log shot them. The Khanewal police arrested Rashi after registering a case.

POWER THEFT: Federal State Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali has claimed that the ratio of electricity theft has been decreased owing to use of technology for meter-reading.

Speaking at the inauguration cer-emony of the Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Cell and the Customer Services Centre at the Mepco Headquarters on Thursday, he pledged that there would be further decrease in electricity theft aftertheinstallationofsmartmeters.

In his briefing to the minister, Mepco Chief Executive Officer Muzaffar Ali Abbasi said it was the first electricity distribution company to have the AMI cell.

He said AMI meters had been installed at 445 distribution transformers of three sub-divisions of the city -Manzoorabad, Industrial Estate and Gulberg.

The smart meters, he said, would be installed at all tubewell connections and the meters of 31,000 consumers utilising 20 kilowatt or above electricity would also be replaced with smart ones. He said the entire data of electricity sale and purchasewould be received at the AMI cell.

He said notices to main consumers utilising electricity from the distribution transformers across the Mepco region had been issued with the direction to get their own transformers installed within 15 days. He said a state-of-the-art customer services centre had been established with the financial aid of USAID.

SUSPENDED: The Mepco Mumtazabad Division executive engineer on Thursday suspended from service a lineman for allegedly manhandling a consumer.

EXEN Ali Akram Gujjar constituted committee to probe the case after a consumer, Muhammad Tahir, complained that lineman Muhammad Asif manhandled him.

The committee comprising the Manzoorabad and New Multan SDOs to submit a report to him within two days.