PESHAWAR: Jamaat-i-Islami chief Sirajul Haq said here on Friday that intense fear prevailed in Malakand division due to recent terror incidents while a large number of people across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were receiving threatening calls for payment of extortion.

Addressing a protest rally against price hike and gas and power loadshedding and their rising tariffs here in Qissa Khwani Bazaar, he said that people were facing economic terrorism at the hands of government while the peace of the province had been ruined by the incompetent rulers.

Mr Haq said that a large number of people in Peshawar, Dir, Waziristan, Swabi, Mardan and other areas of the province were receiving threatening calls for payment of extortion.

He claimed that the chief minister and his cabinet members instead of addressing this issue were themselves paying extortion money. He added that the government only existed on TV and social media.

JI chief says residents receiving extortion calls

The JI chief said that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was nowhere to be seen during the recent attack on its own MPA in Lower Dir and in Swat where Taliban made a video of law-enforcement personnel with their hands tied.

He said that PTI chief Imran Khan should have visited Lower Dir and Swat. He said that on the day of Swat occurrence, Mahmood Khan instead of going to his home district went to Banigala.

Mr Haq said that Imran and Mahmood even did not condole the deaths in Lower Dir. “The PTI leadership is making a hue and cry over the arrest of American national Shahbaz Gill, but they could not go to Swat,” he said.

He said that people of merged areas and Malakand would never accept displacement again and the chief minister should resign if he could not run affairs of the province.

Mr Haq also criticised the prolonged power and gas loadshedding in the province besides increase in their tariffs.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2022