MANSEHRA: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Aftab Shah on Monday said if the party’s parliamentary board didn’t grant him an election ticket, he would contest the upcoming polls here as an independent candidate.

“Though there are differences in our party’s Hazara chapter, I am optimistic that they won’t affect election nomination and the parliamentary board will name me for elections in both NA-14 and PK-40 constituencies but if that doesn’t happen, I will contest polls independently,” Mr Shah told reporters here.

As a member of the PTI’s central executive committee, he gave away tickets for elections to the national and provincial assemblies as well as the Senate.

Mr Shah also said he would meet detained PTI leader Imran Khan in a day or two and informed him about the party’s internal strife in Hazara division. He insisted that the plans to attack sensitive installations on May 9 were “executed” by those leading the PTI at that time.

“All those leaders later parted ways with the PTI and laid the foundation for some regional parties,” he said.

Meanwhile, the PTI has begun receiving applications for election tickets in Battagram, Kolai-Palas, Upper and Lower Kohistan, Abbottabad and Haripur districts.

A local PTI leader told Dawn that the party had received 57 applications for five provincial assembly seats in Mansehra district since last week.

SEIZED: The police took a large quantity of illegal timber into custody in the Pulrah area here on Monday.

A police team led by the Pulrah SHOraided a house, seized the wood illegally taken from trees and shifted it to the police station before handing it over to the forest department.

The forest department freed timber smugglers after collecting fines from them.

The police said timber smugglers illegal chopped down forest trees in Pulrah and Tanawal areas and transported them to Mansehra and other parts of Hazara division through infrequent ways.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2023