MARDAN, Nov 11: A seminar titled Police aur awam roobaroo was held at Mardan Press Club on Sunday where the ever-rising crimes like murders, usury, car theft were discussed and ways to overcome them suggested. Senior Superintendent of Police, Liaqat Khan was the chief guest.

The Mardan Action Forum (MAF) organized the seminar, in which local residents highlighted the crimes, saying gangs of usurers, drug peddlers and car thieves were active in the district who had turned the area into a hell-hole.

They pointed out that a number of people had become bankrupt at the hands of the usurers who advanced them loans on high interest to cater to their urgent needs which they often failed to pay back.

They said the drug peddlers’ dens lie on the outskirts of the city where they trapped youngsters and sold them heroin. When hooked to the drug, these youngsters started committing robberies, snatching bicycles and breaking into houses.

All this, the speakers pointed out, was going on under the nose of the law enforcing agencies.

Even after the crimes are committed, neither the perpetrators are arrested nor the things stolen or looted recovered, they lamented.

While the aggrieved general public is misbehaved at the police stations, the gangsters and outlaws are given a rosy welcome, the speakers charged.

Convener of the MAF, Syed Kamal Shah, hoped that the new SSP Mardan would bring about a change in his jurisdiction and take steps to bring the crime rate down.

He deplored that even though Mardan was the second biggest district of the province, generating huge revenues for the government, its people were not provided enough opportunities of education or entertainment.

He said the cruelty of usurers had forced many people to leave the district whose houses and other properties they auctioned off at nominal prices.

He warned that if these crimes were not checked his organization would stage hunger strike.

The SSP promised that his department would do its utmost to root out evils from the society. No outlaw or criminal, however influential or powerful, would be spared, he pledged.