PTI, allies vow to continue drive against drone attacks

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PESHAWAR, Nov 30: Activists of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and its political allies vowed on Saturday to continue their campaign against the US drone attacks by blocking supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan via Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

According to a PTI press release here, the protesters sent back three Nato containers from Khairabad Bridge on Saturday while other trucks carrying commercial goods were allowed to pass through Hayatabad and enter the adjacent Khyber Agency and then Afghanistan.

The KP government has so far stayed away from the anti-drone protest started from Nov 24 upon the call of PTI chairman Imran Khan during a rally last Saturday.

MNAs Hamidul Haq and Sajid Nawaz and MPAs, including Ayesha Naeem, Naseem Hayat, Zareen Zia, Iftikhar Mashwani, Arif Yousaf, Qurban Ali Khan, Idrees Khan, Mahmood Jan and Fazal Illahi besides Mina Khan Afridi of the Insaf Students Federation and Iqbal Afridi from Fata remained present at the sit-in protest camps established by the Peshawar district chapter of the PTI ahead of Hayatabad toll plaza.

It said that members of Jamaat-i-Islami and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad Pakistan – the PTI’s coalition partners in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government – also attended the protest camps.

Peshawar district PTI general secretary Younas Zaheer Mohmand said that the protest would continue till stoppage of the US drone attacks during which Nato supplies would remain suspended. The workers, he said, were determined to continue the anti-drone campaign because the provincial ruling parties considered these strikes as the violation of international law.

PTI’s provincial spokesman Ishtiaq Urmer told the protesters at the camp that the campaign would continue till the acceptance of their demand concerning end of drone attacks.

Women activists of PTI also participated in the protest camp to record their anger over the unlawful drone strikes in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and KP, according to the press release.

Meanwhile, sources said the KP government had been planning anti-drone protests, which included presenting a memorandum to the US embassy and holding sit-in near the National Assembly, for which request had been sent to the federal government.

They said that the PTI leadership would pursue its anti-drone campaign till its logical conclusion despite national and international pressure.

The sources said that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government was also considering a cabinet meeting to discuss the issue and call by Imran Khan to join the PTI’s protest.

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