KOHAT, March 14: The Kohat police and the political authorities of the Orakzai Agency in a joint operation on Thursday arrested 12 Maliks on the charge of instigating people to stop work on development schemes in the Mamozai area of the agency.

Before their arrests, the Maliks took out a procession in protest against government’s policies and resorted to aerial firing on Wednesday night. They were arrested from their homes in Kohat and the Orakzai Agency and shifted to the Kohat jail.

Malik Sabeel Orakzai, resident of Kohat, Malik Gul Janan, Malik Nawab Khan and six others were rounded up under section 40 of the Frontier Crimes Regulation.

The government recently launched work on a 123-km-long road connecting Khyber and Orakzai agencies. However, a three-kilometre portion was excluded from the project on the protest from the two clans of the Mamozai tribe.

One of the clans demanded that a 15-km portion of the road be constructed at the same time or the whole project be shelved. This group forcefully had the work stopped and threatened the workers with dire consequences.

Meanwhile, Malik Usman Ghani said in a statement that the administration was trying to create rifts among Mamozai tribesmen by turning a development project into a dispute.