MANSEHRA: Traders and people on Friday took to the streets in Kohistan against the extension of the Customs Act to the region and blocked the Karakoram Highway for more than three hours to the inconvenience of motorists and commuters in the hot and humid weather.

Also, traders observed a complete shutter down strike.

“Our district is highly backward in the province. There isn’t any sort of industry here. If the custom law is extended to it, the people will offer resistance,” local MPA Abdul Sattar Khan of the PML-N told a public meeting here in Dubair.

Local MPA threatens to resist law’s enforcement

He said the government had launched mega hydropower projects in Kohistan but they shouldn’t disturb the local peaceful environment.

“The government has launched Diamer-Basha dam and Dasu hydropower projects in Kohistan. Our district alone will produce more than 10,000MW electricity in near future. If the Customs Act is enforced in our district, it will trouble peaceful environment here,” he said.

Other speakers warned the people would begin the movement of civil disobedience if the government didn’t withdraw extension of the customs law to the district.

“We will block the Karakoram Highway for indefinite period if the Customs Act continues to be in effect in our district,” said a speaker.

PROTEST THREATENED: The local traders on Friday warned Abbottabad’s administration and police against harassing them in the district and said they would protest and observe complete shutter down strike against the harassment.

President of the central traders body Hafiz Ijaz told reporters here that the police first arrested Haji Mumtaz Khan under the 3MPO and when the Abbottabad circuit bench of the Peshawar High Court ordered his release on bail, the police threw his family members out of their house.

He said traders had the constitutional right to protest excesses.

The trader leader said the police had registered ‘fabricated’ cases against 41 traders, including Mumtaz Khan, and harassed their family members.

He demanded the immediate withdrawal of those cases.

Mr. Ijaz said if Abbottabad police’s excesses continued, traders would paralyse life across the entire Hazara division.

Another trader leader, Haroonur Rasheed, said the provincial police’s chief should step in and ensure strict action against the policemen taking the law into their hands.

Published in Dawn, July 30th, 2016