TOBA TEK SINGH: A youth’s bid to implicate a man in a false terrorism case for having an affair with his sister, resulted in a security alert in the district, particularly at Pirmahal, where all markets, public and private schools were closed and security of an Imambargah tightened, creating panic in the area on Tuesday.

The routine life in the town was disrupted when heavy contingents of police arrived in the markets around 10am and got the shops closed.

In a parallel development, all public and private schools of Pirmahal were also asked by police to close down their campuses, where students were taking classes, for “security reasons”.

This created panic among the people, especially the parents and schoolchildren.

The central Imambargah at Pirmahal was also cordoned off by police, while, security was tightened around the religious seminaries and other Imambargahs in the district.

Soon a search operation was launched by police in various areas of the town, where the ongoing polio vaccination drive was also suspended, along with other parts of the district.

Emergency was announced in Pirmahal Tehsil Headquarters Hospital. However, the drop-scene of the episode came by afternoon with arrest of two men and a woman at Chak 685/26 GB.

According to police sources, Farman Ali of Chak 685/26 GB had an affair with ‘S’ of the same village. Farman had got issued a mobile phone SIM in his name and gifted it to ‘S’ so that they could chat with each other.

However, Ihsan, brother of ‘S’ got wind of the affair and caught his sister chatting on phone with Farman.

Ihsan, decided to punish Farman for having an affair with his sister. He made a call to a friend of Farman using the SIM he had recovered from his sister.

Impersonating Farman, Ihsan said he was going to blow up a school and an Imambargah in a terrorist attack.

The police sources said somehow an intelligence agency detected the call and issued a security alert for the district, particularly Pirmahal.

Finally, the police traced the three people (the girl, her brother Ihsan and Farman) involved in the incident and took them into custody.

By the evening normalcy returned to Pirmahal where the markets had opened again.

A spokesman for the district police said that after the issue got resolved, shopkeepers were allowed to open their shops again.

He claimed that only Ihsan was in police custody for creating panic and a case would be registered against him.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2017