PESHAWAR, Oct 4: The people of Dir have asked the police to check movement of miscreants on roads and provide them protection particularly business outlets and schools in the district.

Talking to this correspondent, elders of the area -- Syed Zamin Bacha, Azim Khan, Nasrullah Khan and Hamza -- expressed concern over the burning of schools and blowing up of CD shops in the region. They said that the people had taken a unified stand against the terrorists and pledged to flush them out of the area.

They feared that if the government did not take timely action, the outlaws would get strengthen and the law enforcement agencies would be unable to control them.

Referring to the destruction of over one hundred schools in Swat, they said it was a live example for the administration, saying that had the government taken timely action against the miscreants they would have not got the courage to do so.

The elders said that Dir was already a very backward area where educational facilities were already very limited and the children had to face great problems while coming to schools from the far away villages. The people said that the number of seminaries in Dir was very few and fully under the control of the administrators and those who burnt the schools were not locals.

Answering to a question about the kidnapping of Chinese nationals form Khal, they claimed that the foreigners had been kidnapped by the Taliban of Swat. They condemned and termed it a cowardly act, saying that by kidnapping innocent people, the Taliban were not serving Islam rather defaming the religion.

Locals had decided to shoot on sight the miscreants, they said. They appreciated the residents of Nihag Darra who had chased the suicide bombers a few weeks earlier.

They asked the police to keep vigilance on movement of suspected people on the roads specially those travelling in pubic transport vehicles of different valleys.

They demanded checking of miscreants in guise of displaced persons. The elders demanded of the government to issue licences for prohibited weapons like Kalashnikov, Kalakov and light machineguns for self protection.