KOHAT, March 9: The provincial government has declared Kohat, Hangu and Parachinar, the headquarters of Kurram Agency as sensitive, and decided to hand over them to army during Muharram. These cities are among the 20 other areas which have been put on the highly sensitive list.

Small number of para-military troops and the police teams have already started patrolling the main roads and guarding religious places in these areas.

The decision to this effect has been made after top leadership of Shia and Sunni supreme council refused to guarantee peace during Muharram, taking the plea that the government had intentionally delayed to compensate the victims of last year’s sectarian clashes and also failed to arrest the criminals involved in March 2001 incident in Hangu, in which dozens of precious lives were lost.

Maulana Abdullah, the chief of the Sunni supreme council, Hangu, told Dawn on Friday that the innocent  businessmen sustained huge losses during the March riots and the details had been furnished to the governor who, unfortunately is not taking the matter seriously.

He said the grand peace committee formed to settle the last year’s dispute between the two factions had recommended that criminals from both the sides should be arrested and awarded exemplary  punishment, besides the government  should  also compensate the business community.