BAHAWALPUR: The Lodhran City police claim to have foiled an alleged attempt by 17 people to kidnap two married women and the minor son of one of them from their house at Jeewan Chowk on Saturday and arrested 12 of the suspects, including a woman.

Imran Talha, the PRO of DPO Lodhran, said that according to the complaint of victim women, Salma Bibi and Shabana Bibi, they were married. Due to torture, mistreatment and murder threats by their husbands they had left their homes about a month ago.

The women said their parents were also forcing them to live with their husbands but they preferred to leave them. They hired a house in Lodhran city and started living there.

They alleged their husbands had sent the 17 armed people to kidnap them.

Earlier, one Kaniz Bibi along with 16 accomplices tried to kidnap Salma, her minor son, Ahmed, and fellow woman Shabana. The suspects attempted to bundle both the victims into two cars.

On receiving a complaint, police responded timely and arrested 12 of the suspects, including Kaniz, Ghulam Shabeer and Muhammad Riaz. Five others managed to flee in the narrow streets of the locality.

Imran Talha said City police had registered a first information report against the suspects and arrested 12 of them.

IUB: An olive cultivation project was launched at the Islamia University Bahawalpur (IUB). Inaugurating the project, South Punjab agriculture secretary Saqib Ali Ateel said over one million olive trees would be planted in the Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar and Dera Ghazi Khan areas of south Punjab region.

Mr Ateel said that by grafting 500,000 wild olive plants, good quality olives and oil could be extracted from it. He said steps would also be taken to facilitate olive marketing and branding while the farmers would also be linked with local and international markets so that valuable foreign exchange could be earned from the export of olive oil.

Mr Ateel added that with the help of this project, Pakistan could be included in the list of oil exporting countries in the next few years. He said olive cultivation would have a positive impact on climate change. He informed the audience that under this project, olive trees would be planted at 100 acres at the IUB initially. He said in the Pothohar region, 1.5m olive saplings had been provided to the farmers on subsidy and olive cultivation had been done on 11,000 acres in Pothohar.

He added training was being imparted to the farmers through the first Center for Excellence for Olive Research and Training at Barani Agricultural Research Institute, Chakwal.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2021