KOHAT, Jan 8: The police administration has appealed to elders of a religious community to help check the entry of outsiders in the district during Muharram in order to maintain peace in the area.

Addressing a jirga at the Kohat Police Club on Tuesday, ASP City Athar Waheed urged the Shia elders to keep a vigil on suspicious-looking people, avoid raising controversial slogans and prevent people from travelling by sitting on rooftop of vehicles.

The jirga was part of an exercise taken every year before Muharram to consider suggestions for keeping peace during the holy month. It will be followed by a jirga of Sunni elders to be held in a day or two.

A joint jirga of Sunni and Shia elders will then be held to take the representatives of the two communities into confidence regarding the measures the district administration would take during Muharram. It will be addressed by the DIG Kohat region.

A dress-code was finalised in the Tuesday’s meeting for mourners. They were advised not to wear shawls and caps and carry food and water.

The ASP informed the elders that Kohat had been declared one of the most sensitive districts following the clashes between rival sects, adding that maintaining peace during Muharram was a joint responsibility of the elders and the administration.

He said that the spillover of violence from the Kurram Agency and Darra Adam Khel had already made the situation grave in Kohat.

The participants of the jirga assured the administration that they would ask the mourners, except those coming from the nearby areas where there were no Imambargahs, not to visit Kohat.

The meeting was attended by caretakers of all three Imambargahs in the city — Moharram Ali Shah, Amjid Ali Shah and Amjid Karbalai — Alizai UC nazim Iftikhar Hussain, Ustarzai UC nazim and chairman of the Ittehad Bainul Muslimeen Syed Mahatabul Hassan, Tehrik Nifaz-i-Fiqah Jafria Pakistan secretary-general Syed Mazhar Ali Shah, Mian Shah Raza and other elders.