Jirga threatens to block road if gas facility not given

BANNU: A jirga of elders and local political activists from Ghoriwala on Tuesday threatened to block Bannu-Dera Ismail Khan road if the government did not provide gas to their area from the reserves recently discovered in North Waziristan tribal district.

Speaking at the jirga, Pir Matiullah Shah and other elders said that the government had always neglected Ghoriwala and had kept the people deprived of their rights.

They said that they knew that huge reserves of oil and gas had been discovered in the neighbouring North Waziristan district but the people of Bannu had been kept deprived of these facilities.

They said that North Waziristan was one of the districts of Bannu division but its residents had no facility of natural gas.

The elders said that work on laying of the gas pipeline to Punjab was in full-swing which, they alleged, will have far reaching effects on the economy as well as businesses in the Bannu division.

They threatened to halt work on the pipeline if gas facility and royalty were not given to Bannu.