GUJRANWALA: Several religious, political and traders’ organisations announced a donation campaign to collect funds for cleaning the city on self-help basis as the Waste Management Company (WMC) withdrew to clean the heaps of trash and waste from the city due to lack of resources.
While addressing a press conference, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Information Secretary Sagheer Butt, Jamaat-e-Islami Furqan Aziz, opposition leader in municipal cooperation Yahya Butt, Traders Wing Malik Zulfiqar and other notables expressed grave concerns over severe pollution in the city and strongly condemned WMC MD Khalid Bashir Butt, who appealed philanthropists to provide essential machinery and support to the WMC for dumping and accumulation of large heaps of garbage. “If citizens have to clean the city by themselves, there is no need of WMC where hundreds of sanitary workers and officers are employed with salaries from government exchequer,” they said adding that Khalid Bashir should resign if he could not serve citizens rightly. They also claimed responsibility upon three federal ministers and other parliamentarians of the city, who had failed to remove trash and waste from the roads and streets, causing contamination in the water and spreading deadly diseases in the region.
“The large heaps of garbage have blocked the roads causing severe troubles in streamlining the movement of traffic,” they asserted. They alleged MPA Abdul Rauf Mughal’s involvement in corruption of 3.5 million rupees and revealed that the case has been pending for four years.
Later, they criticised Punjab Government over ruining the state institutions and urged that without essential machinery for cleaning the garbage, the officers and staff are a ‘burden’ on the national exchequer.
Woman attempts suicide over ‘illegal’ occupation of her shop
The passersby intercepted a suicidal attempt of a woman at Gujranwala Flyover after her shop was ‘illegally’ occupied by a few influentials.
According to a report, Kosar Bibi, a resident of Gakhar Mandi tried to jump off a flyover along with her children. However, passersby foiled her suicidal attempt. Consequently, Kosar Bibi revealed that her husband had died and she rented her shop to Khurram Shahzad, who has neither paid rent nor vacated the shop since last year. She claimed to file many complaints to the local police but no action was taken against the ‘illegal’ occupier.
FIA arrests seven alleged human traffickers
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Saturday arrested seven more people accused of human trafficking. The deputy director Mufakhir Adeel said that FIA teams raided the cities of Sialkot, Gujrat, Gujranwala and Narowal as part of its continuous crackdown against human traffickers. Reportedly, the accused including Shahid Farooq, Sajjad Ahmed, Khurram, Zulifqar, Shafiq ur Rehman, Imran and Arshad were arrested, who were involved in transporting people abroad illegally.
Teachers protest against recruitment process
Dozens of teachers on Saturday carried out a demonstration against the authorities of education department in front of the District Commissioner Office (DCO) for not completing their recruitment process. They alleged that they were selected for the posts of arts educators about two months ago. However, due to negligence of the education department, they were unable to join their duties. They demanded Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) and Chief Minister (CM) of Punjab to take notice of the matter and ensure their joining as soon as possible.
Published in Daily Times, May 13th 2018.
