December 07, 2007	Friday	Ziqa'ad 26, 1428

KOHAT, Dec 6: A large number of people tried to stage a rally here and took a man hostage after the police tried to stop them from entering the city on Thursday.

The Hangu and Kohat police had blocked the road near Nasratkhel, a railway crossing between Hangu and Juzara, since early morning to stop the convoys of protesters from crossing over the district borders.

Some vehicles carrying protesters managed to pass through the blockade. The protesters took an Afridi tribesman hostage who was travelling between Kohat and Hangu. They also blocked a road in the Nasratkhel town.

District Police Officer Dr Vaqar accompanied by the former chief justice of Peshawar High Court, Syed Ibne Ali, Malik Ashraf Ali and the nazim of Ustarzai union council, Syed Mahtabul Hassan, negotiated and got the man taken hostage freed.

They also persuaded the protesters to open the road and assured them that the administration would contact the political authorities for the release of men still held by the Taliban in Darra Adamkhel.

The protesters had announced on Wednesday to hold a protest rally in Kohat to force the administration to get Gul Mohammad, being held hostage by Taliban of the Darra Adamkhel since November 19, freed. Gul Mohammad is a resident of the Lodhikhel village of Hangu district, working as an office superintendent in the Kohat Development Authority.

He had been detained by the local militants along with other people travelling on the road between Kohat and Peshawar in reaction to the violence in the Kurram Agency last month.

The Taliban have so far freed eight hostages, including three women, following negotiations with an influential cleric sent by the NWFP governor.

The Taliban had earlier killed three people travelling on the Indus Highway to avenge the deaths of their colleagues at the hands of a rival group. In retaliation, a student of a vocational institute in Kohat and one of his colleagues had opened fire on people in a mosque in Darra Adamkhel, injuring six of them.