GILGIT, Oct 22: With a gradual improvement in law and order situation in the violence-stricken city, curfew was relaxed from 8am to 3pm on Saturday as a jirga deliberated on peace efforts.

The curfew was imposed on October 13 following clashes between mobs and security forces.

A large number of shoppers, particularly women, thronged markets for purchasing Eid items and commodities of daily use. The Rangers and police were deployed at shopping centres and on main and service roads. Banks were reopened but attendance in government and private offices remained thin.

Meanwhile, a 35-member grand jirga, presided over by the Northern Areas’ Legislative Council Speaker, Malik Mohammad Miskeen, held a session in Chinar Bagh and discussed ways to bring the conflicting parties to reconciliation.

The jirga stressed the need for implementation of the peace pacts inked by representatives of different schools of thought in the past in letter and spirit.

It observed that given the ‘hypocrisy and doublespeak’, the efforts of the peace jirga had borne no fruit in the past.

It expressed concern over the holding of seminars, rallies, conferences and a jirga by different sects since January 8 in the name of restoring peace.

“Some people condemned violence in public but in private they encouraged militants which has frustrated the peace efforts,” the jirga members observed.