BAJAUR: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl activists here on Sunday held a protest march and blocked the main Khar-Peshawar road against the authorities’ failure to arrest killers of their two leaders Maulana Abdul Salam Haqqani and Mufti Sultan Mohammad.

Besides the party workers, teachers and students of several religious seminaries also attended the rally held in Khar Bazaar. It turned into a public meeting after the protesters, holding party flags, marched through various places.

The demonstration continued for over two hours where the protesters raised slogans against the administration and police for not taking tangible steps to arrest the killers.

JUI-F district chief Maulana Abdul Rasheed, general secretary Maulana Mohammad Laiq and others addressed the protesters.

They said that Maulana Haqqani was killed in a targeted attack some two weeks ago, but the authorities failed to arrest the people involved in the incident despite the promise to arrest the attackers in a week.

Protesters block road in Bajaur against delay in tracing the attackers

The speakers said that Mufti Sultan was killed on October 29, 2019, but no steps had been taken as yet to trace and arrest the assailants.

They claimed that about 12 religious leaders, who belonged to JUI-F, had been killed in different attacks in the district during the past few years, but the attackers could not be traced in any of the case.

They termed it the failure of the administration, police and others concerned authorities.

They announced that JUI-F workers would hold rallies and demonstrations in all tehsil headquarters of the district on every Sunday if the killers of Maulana Haqqani and Mufti Sultan were not arrested.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT: Authorities here said to have stopped the public transport vehicles from leaving the district in line with the government’s restriction on inter-district movement of public transport on the weekends – Saturday and Sunday – so as to contain spread of Covid-19.

According to a statement issued by the DC office, several teams of the administration stopped public transport vehicles from leaving the district for other cities of the country.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2021