PESHAWAR, Dec 20: The police on Saturday ordered the removal of mannequins used for displaying fashion-wear from storefronts of boutiques and garment stores on the University Road.

Police officials said they were acting on orders received three days ago from NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani that stated that displaying dummies in shops’ windows amounted to “obscenity.”

“The chief minister did not like the way these mannequins are displayed in windows especially in shops situated along both sides of the University Road,” said an official of the University Town police station.

Owner of a large boutique said that dozens of garments stores would be affected through by what he termed the unjustified ban on display of mannequins.

Questioning the move’s rationale and criticizing discrimination in this regard, the boutique owner asked whether Islam was only meant for Peshawar and that, too, only for the University Road and not for the Peshawar cantonment.

A police official, while justifying the action, said that some of the dummies were “very obscene” and, therefore, “promoting vulgarity.”

The official said that they had started removing mannequins and would not allow their display in any case.

Interestingly, authorities had not asked garment stores in the Peshawar Saddar, one of the main shopping areas in the provincial capital, to remove dummies because of their being situated in the cantonment area.

A shop owner in the City Towers, a plaza on the University Road with more than a dozen garments stores, said the government should not harass store owners in the name of religion.

He said that they had hung curtains over their storefront after receiving orders in this regard. But they had to remove curtains after their customers objected to the curtains over their storefronts.