PESHAWAR, Dec 5: Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) has expressed concern over closure of roads to different villages in Khyber Agency due to military operation and demanded of the government to stop the operation and ensure supply of food, medicines and other necessary items to the residents.

Speaking at a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Wednesday, JUI-F’s Khyber Agency naib amir Haji Shamsuddin said that patients had been dying due to restriction on movement of people.

Referring to problems being faced by residents of Tirah valley due to prolonged curfews, he said that they had been forced to keep their movement to their localities and they were not allowed to keep contact with rest of the country.

“We can move via Dogar (Kurram Agency), Dabori of Orakzai Agency or Bara from Tirah valley, but all the routes have been closed and officials of the political administration have also closed their eyes to the sufferings of people,” Mr Shamsuddin said.

He said that besides this the police had been taking innocent people into custody and extorting money from them otherwise they were kept in torture cells for months.

“I can prove that police have opened cells in Hayatabad area where they keep people and torture them for payment of extortion,” the JUI-F leader claimed.

Mr Shamsuddin said that police were bound to produce people in courts and prove them guilty. He said that the JUI-F would soon launch a protest movement for rights of tribal people.

He said that the federal and provincial disaster management authorities had failed to serve the internally displaced persons. He alleged embezzlement in relief items by employees deputed at Jalozai camp and demanded their replacement.

Flanked by other tribesmen, the JUI-F leader claimed that many people had been missing from different localities of tribal areas, but the government was not taking interest to recover them safely. He alleged that the IDPs were being looted at checkpoints, but the police department was not taking notice of injustices by its staff.