MULTAN -  The students of various public sector colleges staged a demonstration against denial of summer vacations despite scorching heat here at Chungi No. 9, on Wednesday.

The students chanted slogans against the administration of their colleges and told journalists that despite the Punjab Government’s clear instructions, they were not given summer vacations. They lamented that all the universities and schools were closed for the last one week but the colleges were still open.

A student of BS Commerce namely Madiha said that even private colleges had announced summer vacations but the public sector college authorities were reluctant to announce summer vacations.

Another student pointed out that even the colleges had not rescheduled their timings in the month of Ramazan. It is very difficult to spend time from 8am to 1:30 pm while fasting and without electricity, he added.

Asking the Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif to take notice of what they described as great injustice, they demanded the Punjab government to issue instruction to the education department to immediately close all colleges in the province.

996,000 POWER PILFERERS CAUGHT

The monitoring and surveillance teams of Multan Electric Power Company (Mepco) have caught 996,000 power pilferers red handed stealing electricity through different means during the last 10 months and over Rs2.5 billion fine was imposed on them.

Mepco sources disclosed that the teams carried out surprise operations across the region and unearthed hundreds of thousands of power theft cases. Sources added that the recovery teams had so far recovered over Rs2.20 billion from the power pilferers which was deposited to national exchequer. Sources said that the teams caught 53,009 power pilferers from Multan circle, 52,302 Dera Ghazi Khan, 74,584 Vehari, 153,907 Bahawalpur, 49415 Sahiwal, 257,645 Rahim Yar khan, 132,206 Muzaffargarh, 97,557 Bahawalnagar and 125,397 Khanewal.