Commercial plazas replace guava orchards in Kohat

Source Oman Tribune

The guava orchards which once surrounded the whole Kohat city in northwest Pakistan and its outskirts are diminishing fast to give way to commercial plazas, depriving the area of the much-needed greenery and fresh air.

The worst-affected locality in the city is Jarwanda which had guava orchards for hundreds of years.

Similarly, guava orchards along the Bannu bypass, Hangu road and Dhodha would once provide a patch of cold breeze in hot summer to the city dwellers and travellers. But these have now been replaced by buildings, as several housing societies are active in the area.

However, guava fruit is still served to guests and regarded as part of lunch. Guava is a specialty of Kohat.

The guava tree takes about five years to grow and start giving fruit while the growers have to wait till then for return of their investment.

But now they could erect a commercial plaza within a year and start monetary returns because of the commercialisation on Kohat-Thall highway and other major roads passing through thick guava orchards. The guava orchards once occupied thousands of acres of land in Kohat, but entrepreneurs never thought to establish a profitable juice plant. The country spends a huge amount of money on importing guava juice, but locally produced fruits are rotting due to ancient techniques of preserving the fruit, which has a shelf life of five hours in winter.

The bureaucracy and politicians never bothered to invite officials from the forestry department or especially the department created for guava research to increase its output and lure the investors to construct the juice industry. There are still hundred-years-old guava orchards near Tanda Dam the most famous of which are located in Kaghazai area whose fruit is being sold in Peshawar and Rawalpindi for Rs150 per kilogramme.

The prices of guava orchards have jumped from a few thousand rupees to millions due to their high income in famous areas which produced apple-like sweet fruit.

Security men injured in road accident

Six security personnel were injured when their vehicle met with an accident while on way to Kohat from North Waziristan, Geo News reported Tuesday.

According to the sources, the security forces’ vehicle turned turtle on Kohat-Karak Highway when the personnel were on their way to Kohat from North Waziristan. As a result of accident, six troops sustained injuries who were shifted to a hospital in Kohat.

Hospital sources told that one of the security man is in critical condition.

The cause of the accident couldn’t be ascertained yet, however, the security forces initiated investigation.

Establishment of oil, gas refinery in Karak hailed

Source The News

PESHAWAR: The Khattak Qaumi Ittehad has lauded the federal government for establishing oil and gas refinery in Karak district and approval of fund for the provision of gas supply to dozens of villages in Karak, Kohat and Hangu districts.

Speaking at a news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Thursday, Khattak Qaumi Ittehad Karak chairman Rehmat Salam Khattak, who is also provincial general secretary of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, said that a representative delegation of the Khattak Ittehad met Federal Minister for Petroleum Shahid Khaqan Abbassi in Islamabad who approved establishment of oil and gas refinery in Karak.

He was flanked by former provincial ministers Mian Nisar Gul Kakakhel, Farid Khan Toofan, former MNA Maulana Shah Abdul Aziz and other members of the Khattak Qaumi Ittehad.

He said the delegations assured the federal minister to provide full protection to public and private sectors for making investment in oil and gas sectors in Karak district, demanding maximum employment to local people, particularly educated youths, in the oil and gas exploring companies.

Rehmat Salam said the federal minister also approved Rs6.30 billion for supplying natural gas to those villages in Karak, Kohat and Hangu districts where gas had not been provided till date despite the fact that these districts were producing oil and natural gas.He said the federal minister also assured them to allocate special quota to the skilled and educated youths in oil and gas refinery.

Two coalminers killed in Orakzai

Source Then News

KALAYA: Two workers were killed and five others sustained injuries when a coalmine collapsed in the Doli area in Orakzai Agency on Wednesday, sources said. The sources said the labourers were busy working inside the Al-Hussain Coal Company No-II when it collapsed. The locals and rescue team reached the spot and retrieved the bodies of two labourers, identified as Niamatullah belonging to Swat and Said Rehman, hailing from Shangla district. The injured labourers included Sardar Hussain, Khialzada, Rehmatullah, Latifullah and Usman were rushed to the District Headquarters Hospital in Kohat where two of them were shifted to a hospital in Peshawar. However, the bodies of two workers were shifted to hometowns for burial. The sources said the coalmine collapsed when a truck entered the mine.

Three militants held with arms in Kohat

Source The News

Security forces arrested three suspected militants and seized a huge cache of arms near Kohat Tunnel on Saturday, official sources said.

The sources said the security forces pulled over a truck heading to Dera Ismail Khan from Darra Adamkhel and on thorough search recovered heavy arms, including 15 Kalakov rifles, 11 Kalashnikov rifles, 10 machine-guns, six grenade launchers, 10 repeaters, 95 pistols and 30,000 cartridges, besides explosive materials from the secret cavities of the truck.

Youth killed in bid to stop suicide attack

Source Dawn

A student was killed outside a school in Ibrahemzai area in Hangu on Monday when a suicide attacker he was trying to stop blew himself up, police said.

The suicide bomber tried to enter the school building when Aitezaz Hussain, a student of class IX in Government High School Ibrahemzai, stopped him.

A police official, Ali Murtaza, told Dawn that the suicide bomber was walking towards the school at around 8am when the assembly was being held in its main ground. Aitezaz became suspicious of the way he moved and asked him to stop. But the bomber detonated the explosives strapped to his body.

The police official said that the suicide bomber wanted to target the assembly. He said Aitezaz had sacrificed his life to save other students.

Hangu city police registered a case.

KP chief minister seeks recovery of gas loss caused by security threat

Source Dawn

 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has expressed inability of people in his government to enter the Kohat-Gurgury region because of the security situation there and has demanded that the cost of a loss of 11 billion cubic feet of gas in the region be recovered from consumers in Punjab and peaceful areas in his province.Advocate Mirza Mahmud Ahmad, the counsel for Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited and a director of Sui Southern Gas Company Limited, told Dawn on Monday that Mr Khattak had written to the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority that it was difficult for his administration to do anything in the Kohat-Gurgury region.

A federal government official said that a chief minister was not authorised to write directly to Ogra, he could take up the matter only through the prime minister, the Ministry of Inter-provincial Coordination or the Council of Common Interests.

On the basis of the chief minister’s letter, Advocate Ahmad pleaded before a three-member panel of Ogra not to penalise gas companies for theft and gas losses.

Ogra Chairman Saeed Ahmad Khan presided over a meeting on a petition of the SNGPL for an increase of Rs35 billion in its final revenue requirement (FRR) for 2012-13 through a hike of Rs68.64 per unit in its prescribed prices.

He said when the KP government could not access the Kohat region and a major part of Balochistan was out of bound even for the army, it was illogical to expect employees of the gas companies to recover gas bills in such areas.

An Ogra official said the SNGPL counsel had argued that Ogra could not take such a decision without a public hearing even though the recovery was required under previous Ogra determinations cleared by the Lahore High Court and repeatedly stressed by the National Accountability Bureau.

Advocate Ahmad said the minimum monthly bill of a household was about Rs240 compared with Rs4,300 of those using kerosene and Rs4,700 for liquefied petroleum gas. The natural gas has become a fuel of the privileged class with 93pc consumers getting it at highly subsidised rate.

He said he did not support an increase in gas rates for poor lifeline households but for CNG and industries because the cost of alternative fuels used by them was at least four times higher than gas. Ogra reserved the determination for internal working, but analysts said that two members of the panel appeared inclined to accept gas companies’ demand for an increase in prescribed price for FRR.

ASWJ workers granted bail

Source The News

The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday issued release order of 16 workers of Ahle-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) who were arrested and charged for attacking the shops of Shia community in Kohat district.

A single bench headed by Justice Musarrat Hilali issued release order of Haider Wakeel, Shakil Saddiqui, Islamuddin, Farhan Bangash, directing them to furnish bail bonds worth Rs500,000 with the court.

Counsels for the petitioners Saeed Khan and Ibrar Alam submitted there were allegations against their clients that in reaction to the Rawalpindi incident, they on November 18, 2013 set on fire about 27 shops of the Shia community at Teera bazaar in Kohat city.

Shifting of oil refinery from Karak to Kohat opposed

Source The Nation

Strongly opposing the proposed shifting of Oil Refinery from district Karak to Kohat, members of the Khattak Loya Jirga warned to stop supply of crude oil and gas, if refinery was not established in the district.
Speaking at a news conference here at the Peshawar Press Club on Friday, Rahmat Salam Khattak, member of the Jirga and provincial leader of ruling PML-Nawaz, said that government has planned to shift the oil refinery unit to Khushalgarh area of Kohat on the pretext of shortage of water at the proposed site Kappra, district Karak. He said the proposed site was technically feasible for the construction of the refinery but the government planned to shift it from the district.
The Khattak Loya Jirga consisted of different political parties, notables of the district and local elders. They included Mian Nisar Gul of JUI-F, Farid Toofan of PML-N, ex-MNA Mufti Jamal, Noor Muhammad Khan, Maulana Mir Ikram, Col (Retd) Khalid, representatives of Khattak Itehad, elders and student activists were in the attendance.
The PML-N leader Rahmat Salam said that it was quite injustice to shift the oil refinery from Karak to Kohat without having any genuine reason. He added if the refinery was shifted to Khushalgar area of Kohat then about 100km long pipeline for oil supply from Karak would also be required. Besides, in the long run the long supply pipeline would be unprotected during worsening law and order situation, he cautioned.

On the other hand, Khattak said that government was even not ready to extend only 3km line for the supply of water from Indus river to fulfil the requirement of the proposed refinery in Kappra area of Karak despite the fact this site was earlier selected by former provincial government and Pakistan State Oil company, he maintained. Khattak also informed that about Rs250 to Rs300 million would be spent on pipeline expansion from Indus River to the already identified site. 
“If the government was failed to provide the required funds for the water supply line, then the entire Khattak tribe would be compelled to initiate the project on self-help basis,” he added.
Khattak also alleged that the refinery was planned to shift due to manipulation of the Chief Minister Special Consultant Amjad Afridi. “We will not allow supplying Oil from Karak to Attock Oil refinery,” he warned. He informed that about 50 per cent oil reserves in Karak, which is not acceptable to supply to Attock refinery and Pak-Arab Refinery Limited (PARCO).