FAISALABAD – FCCI executive member and former chairman of its committee for PIA, Zafar Iqbal Sarwar, has urged the national carrier to give a serious consideration to the demands of the business community of the third largest city of Pakistan that stands second in terms of revenue generation for the national exchequer.
The business community of Faisalabad is fed up with the repeated assurances of the Paklistan International Ailines (PIA) authorities that they will restore the old flight schedule between Faisalabad and Karachi but there is no result”, he said. “The PIA flight service between Faisalabad and Karachi is quite dissatisfactory, inconvenient and terrible owing to its odd timings that are suitable to none, he said.
He demanded the restoration of the old schedule to end the miseries of the businessmen who have to travel frequently from Faisalabad to Karachi. He regretted that their reasonable demands are being ignored by the PIA. Referring to the former schedule, Zafar Iqbal said there were a total of 14 flights per week from Faisalabad to Karachi that comprised daily a morning and an evening flight.
It was possible for a trader or a businessman to go to Karachi in the morning and return the same day in the evening after spending his working day in Karachi to settle his business and official deals. As per the current schedule, the total number of weekly flights has decreased from 14 to 9. There is a daily flight arriving from Karachi at 11am that returns to Karachi in the afternoon.
There is no flight from Karachi to Faisalabad after 9:30am, so one has to wait for the next day to board a return flight to Faisalabad. Under the circumstances, those who need to travel to Karachi for a few hours in the morning are required to stay in Karachi for two nights. He stressed the need to launch a weekly direct flight for Jeddah for those desirous of performing Umra.
He also demanded Hajj flights from Faisalabad. Another FCCI member, Engineer Rizwan Ashraf, also highlighted the problems faced by Faisalabad-based businessmen towards travelling to Karachi by PIA. He urged the PIA to respond to the demand of passengers and revise its schedule.
Girl kidnapped by guests: A girl was kidnapped by a couple when her parents allowed the victim to accompany them for attending a seminar.
Reportedly, Niaz Hussain and his wife Fakhira Niaz who have family terms with the victim’s parents visited their house along with their daughter Sadaf Niaz. The visiting family told their host Abbass Ali, a resident of Forest Colony Gtattwala that they were going to Chiniot to attend an educational seminar and asked him to send his daughter Asia Rabab with them. He allowed his daughter to accompany them.
Later, the complainant told the police that when his daughter did not return home till night, he came to know that there was no seminar at all at the venue mentioned by the accused.
Father dies after hearing news of his daughter’ death: A bed-ridden elderly man died out of a shock after hearing the news of the death of his daughter in a road accident. Reportedly, two sisters Parveen Bibi and Shafqat Bibi, residents of Mohallah Gobind Pura Toba Tek Singh, went to Faisalabad to bring medicine for their sick father Muhammad Ali. When they were returning from Faisalabad by a coach, a truck coming from the opposite side hit their coach at Chak No 318 JB near the railway crossing.
Resultantly, Parveen Bibi died instantly while Shafqat Bibi got seriously injured and was taken to the Faisalabad Districts Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital. When the ailing father heard the news of his daughter’s death, he died out of shock.
400 bottles of liquor recovered: Chiniot patrolling police spotted a suspected car parked on Faisalabad Road, searched it and seized 400 bottles of liquor. Reportedly, the patrolling police were tipped off by an informer that a suspected car parked very close to a truck near Madina Sugar Mills was having some contraband contents. When the police reached the spot, the owner of the car abandoned the carriage and escaped.
The patrolling officer Qamar Abbas, Head Constable Aqeel and constables Anjum and Imran recovered 400 bottles of imported liquor from the car. Man in police custody dies of heart attack: The theft accused who was being presumed to have been killed by the police, in fact, had died of heart attack.
The family of the deceased who protested the death as brutal killing by the police was dispersed as the co-accused of the deceased who was detained in the same cell confirmed that he was not tortured by the police. Reportedly, the accused Ghulam Muhammad was arrested under the charges of cattle theft and was detained by Bhawana police along with another co-accused. He died of heart attack in the cell but the relatives alleged that Bhawana police tortured him to death and gathered outside the police station to protest against the death.
Superintendent of Police (SP) Chaudhry Azeem held dialogues with the father and sons of the deceased and took them to the detention cell where the co-accused assured them that the police had not tortured them at all. After listening to the fellow accused, the family ended its protest and dispersed.
