FAISALABAD, July 6: Law enforcers rule Chotian Kottan, Samundri, to prevent holding of a memorial ceremony of Shehzad Tanvir, an accused of 7/7 London bombing, Dawn learnt on Sunday.

Tahir Pervez, maternal uncle of Tanvir, lives with his family in a single-storey house, in Chak 477-GB, Chotian Kottan. He would arrange well-attended ceremony every year in the village to remember and pray for Tanvir. This time, however, he has been ‘told’ to keep the ceremony a family affair. Tanvir visited the house of his uncle twice before the incident took place.

Dawn visited the village on Sunday and saw that most of the houses were locked and a few people were roaming in the streets. A grocery shop was open; a cobbler was mending shoes; and a few labourers were constructing a house. Those present in the village refused to comment on the ceremony or Tanvir and his family. However, two people, seeking anonymity, said the law enforcers had told the family not to arrange the annual Khatam for Tanvir publicly. Regardless of Tanvir’s visit to the family, they said, most of the area people believed Tahir’s family had nothing to do with terrorism. They said the family was so frightened it did not open the door whenever any outsider rang the doorbell.

The said villagers cursed the media for its role in dubbing the family as terrorists.

Dawn observed villagers acted vigilantly upon seeing any outsider in the area. They grill such people and even force them to leave before they can record any thing or take any picture.

A local lawyer, who has been settled in Lahore for decades, said that when a couple of months ago he visited the village graveyard to pray at the graves of his forefathers, some of the area people approached him seeking his identity. He said that after a thorough probe, the villagers let him pray. In the village graveyard, Tanvir is also buried.