SIALKOT-Police have registered a case against three owners of local brick kilns for selling 13 family members including women and children to the owner of another brick kilns as they had demanded proper wages.
The police registered a case (No. 290/2018) Under Sections 342 and 374 of PPC on the report of the family's head Inayat.
The FIR revealed that Hafizabad-based Inayat and his family were doing labour at the brick kilns of accused Ghulam Abbas, Fiaz and Rana Mazhar at village Peero Chak-Daska. The accused sold out labourer Inayat and 12 other members of his family including his wife Sakeena, Ghulam Fareed, Naveed Bilal, Ali Ahmed Sabiri, Samar Ali, Abdul Rehman (14), Sana Bibi, wife of Ghulam Fareed, Shazia Bibi, wife of Naveed Bilal, Faria Bibi, wife of Ali Ahmed Sabiri, Firdous Bibi, wife of Samar Ali, Tayyuba Inayat (13) and Kiran Islam (10) to Haji Ansar, the owners of another brick kiln.
The FIR revealed the selling and purchasing of the family at different times during the last two years. The victim family added that the accused used to pay them very less as bonded labour. They further alleged that the owners also committed fraud with them by issuing fake receipts of receiving big amounts from the kiln owners as loans.
The accused again sold out the family to another accused owners of brick kiln in Peshawar and Rawalpindi after kidnapping the family from Sialkot district. The police recovered the family from Peshawar and got them freed from the illegal detention.
On the other side, 1,500 factories are causing environmental pollution in Gujranwala Division thereby creating health hazards in the region.
The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) officials said that the EPA had registered separate cases against 500 factories besides sending their challans to the concerned tribunal, but the environmental pollution still remains un-halted by the officials concerned. The local industrialists are politically influential thus are reluctant to stop the spreading of environmental pollution.
EPA officials said that it had conducted inspection of 2,200 factories and industrial units and found large-scale environmental pollution. These factories burn old tyres, rubber pieces, leather shoes, useless batteries and plastic shoppers which cause massive environmental pollution.
The officials added that the EPA had also issued notices to the owners for environmental pollution asking them to shift the factories to the outskirts of the city.
Building material
selling at inflated rates
The stockists, dealers and shopkeepers are fleecing the customers by selling the construction material on inflated rates in Sialkot districts, ahead of the Punjab budget for the fiscal year 2018-2019.
The nasty practice still goes unchecked and unabated which has also badly affected the pace of construction work in Sialkot region.
Reportedly, they were selling a 50kg cement bag at the inflated rate of Rs550 with a Rs60 increase against the fixed official rate of Rs490; iron rods is selling at the Rs90 to 100 per kg against the official rate of Rs70 to 75; and stone crush at Rs60 per feet against the official rate of Rs52 in the local markets of Sialkot, Daska, Sambrial and Pasrur.
Local social and political circles have expressed grave concern over the critical situation. They have urged Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif to look into the matter in the larger public interest.