PESHAWAR, Sept 14: The law enforcing agencies declared the Regi Township ‘cleared’ of militants as the watchmen of two compounds which were allegedly occupied by the armed men have denied any such happening.

Officials of the bomb disposal squad on Sunday scanned the compounds and nearby areas where some armed men were spotted late on Saturday night and had not traced anything objectionable.

The personnel of police and Frontier Constabulary (FC) had laid a siege of Regi area late Saturday night after reports about presence of militants there. However, they could not apprehend any militant there.

A watchman at a newly-constructed single-storey site office of the City Development and Municipal Department (CDMD), Khan Janan, told journalists that neither he was made hostage nor the militants had taken over the building.

Similarly, another watchman, Abdul Ghani, deputed to look after a communication tower established at an abandoned hospital for refugees also narrated the same story. Both of them claimed that they had witnessed the movement of some armed persons but they had not entered or occupied any compound in the area.

Some nomads, staying in the area, around 20 kilometres off the main Peshawar-Torkham Highway, claimed that the armed men visit the area regularly but had never threatened anyone of them in the past.

A police official claimed that the issue was blown out of proportion by the private television channels and some officials of the FC who were deputed in the area. He said that while some of the channels claimed that the CDMD’s site office was occupied by the militants and the employees were taken hostages but some channels claimed that an abandoned Afghan hospital was occupied.

Interestingly, one of the TV channels initially claimed that around 500 militants had occupied the building. Later, it reduced the number of militants to 100 and finally the figures were reduced to nearly 20. It was also mentioned that heavy weapons had been used during exchange of firing between the security forces and militants, whereas in fact no encounter had taken place.

Khan Janan, a resident, said that when he saw some armed men passing through Zone-I of Regi Township, he informed the FC deputed nearby. He added that they onward informed their high ups and the police following which the operation of security forces started. A sentence “Tehrik-i-Taliban Zindabad” (long live Tehrik-i-Taliban) was written on the outer wall of the site office, but it was not clear as to when the said words were inscribed.

The coverage given by the TV channels created panic in the localities situated on Nasirbagh road. A cable operator in the Canal Town locality forthwith stopped their services and highlighted a message on the TV that as hundreds of militants had attacked the area, therefore, they could no longer continue relaying the programmes.

A resident of the locality told Dawn that these TV channels created scare in the entire area and even his family was asking him to vacate their house and shift to some safe position. “Independence of media is vital but these media outlets should also have some sense of responsibility,” he added.