September 20, 2002	Friday	Rajab 12, 1423

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PESHAWAR, Sept 19: Sixty of the 92 union council Nazimeen of the district and three women councillors on Thursday resigned in protest against the murder of Pishtkhara UC Nazim Fiyyaz Khalil.

Naib Nazim Dr Iqbal Khalil presided over a session of the district council convened to pay homage to its slain member.

District Nazim Azam Khan Afridi was also present.

All the 60 Nazimeen and three women councillors present in the meeting signed a resignation sheet and handed it over to the convener of the council.

The names of all the Nazimeen who resigned could not be ascertained as they left the house hurriedly to march towards Governor’s House to lodge their protest. But they dispersed at Bacha Khan Chowk.

Azam Afridi, Tariq Aziz, Sirajul Haq, Pir Fida, Malik Bashir, Malik Mehr Zaman, Dost Mohammad, Shamim Qaiser, Ghulam Rasool, and others demanded the immediate arrest of the killers and expressed their fear that otherwise the murderers would flee the country.

Speaking at the session, they held the police and Peshawar Electric Supply Company responsible for the killing.

The hours-long loadshedding, they observed, had forced the people to come on the streets to lodge their protest against Pesco and Mr Khalil being Nazim of the area was leading the protesters.

The Pishtkhara police resorted to firing on peaceful protesters and killed Mr Khalil, they claimed.

The angry Nazimeen held Pesco’s management equally responsible for the incident. They belied the claim of power-theft put up by the Pesco chairman against the residents. “The residents are still suffering from hours-long loadshedding, but Pesco chairman is playing with public feelings by issuing threatening  statements,” they said.