PESHAWAR: As many as 58 unknown persons, including women, have been charged with blocking Kohat Road here after the local residents failed to receive free flour bags.

Badhber police station officials said free flour was being distributed in the area, but when many people, including women, failed to receive flour, they blocked the Kohat Road causing problems for commuters.

“We lodged two cases with one each on March 27 and 28 against these people,” Naeem Khan, an official of Badhber police said, adding no one had been nominated in the cases, but the total number of those charged in the FIRs was 58, including 40 women.

On March 28, hundreds of people looted flour from a distribution point near a park on the Ring Road.

Video footage of the incident shared on social media showed a large number of people swarming a truck as soon as it arrived on the scene. Many of them climbed the truck and started throwing out flour bags.

The driver sped away to escape the mob. Video footage also showed people fighting over looted flour and trying to snatch bags from each other.

The Chamkani police stated they had detained 40 people for looting the flour truck on the Ring Road, but no FIR was registered against them as yet.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2023