PESHAWAR: People belonging to different walks of life on Saturday held a protest demonstration against the growing business of interest-based private loans and demanded of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to implement Prohibition of Interest on Private Loans Act, 2016, in real sense to curb the menace of usury.

The participants led by Amn Jirga chairman Syed Kamal Shah advocate were holding banners and placards inscribed with demands for imposing complete ban on usury. They asked police to fulfil their duties and register cases against the people involved in the menace and violating the relevant law.

Kamal Shah demanded of the government to remove the hurdles to effective enforcement of the law in the province and get the people rid of the interest-based loans by devising an effective economic policy.

Accompanied by elders from different districts, including Peshawar, Nowshera, Mardan, Swabi and Charsadda, he said that the rich people had started fleecing poor citizens by charging high interest from them and as a result the low income group had become slaves of the rich.

The Amn Jirga, he said, had launched a movement against the menace of usury in order to discourage the interest-based private loans and to bar moneylenders from charging interest and assaulting the borrowers for recovery of their amounts. He, however, said the law should be made more effective with removal of certain lacunas.

The jirga chief said that the government had approved the law, but it was yet to be fully implemented as the police were reluctant to take action against the exploiters. The police, he alleged, were in the habit of taking bribes and releasing the wrongdoers without charging them in FIRs.

He said that if the government failed to implement the law its entire responsibility would rest with the police officials of relevant areas.

He urged IGP Salahuddin Mehsud to take practical steps for implementation of the law.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2018