PESHAWAR, Nov 9: Activists of religious parties here on Friday forced shopkeepers in various bazaars to pull their shutters down.

A small procession, led by the activists of Jamiat Ahl-i-Hadith, emerged from the Masjid Mahabat Khan and paraded through Kabuli Chowk, Khyber Bazaar, Namakmandi, Jehangir Pura, Kohati Bazaar, Kochi Market, Chiri Dilgaran, Pipal Mandi and Ashraf Road. The protesters forced and intimidated shopkeepers to close their business and join the protest.

The protesters returned to the same mosque, but they came out again and marched towards the G.T. Road.

The police stopped them and when the protesters tried to break the security ring, the police fired teargas shells. The protesters, however, managed to move towards the Khyber Bazaar.

They played a hide-and-seek with the police and pelted the opened shops with stones.

Later, Jamaat-i-Islami workers joined the procession on the Kuchehri Road. The Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan took out a procession from the Masjid Qasim Ali Khan. They SSP workers marched through various lanes.

They carried posters with portrait of Osama bin Laden and chanted slogans against Presidents George W. Bush and Pervez Musharraf.

Significantly, most of shops, restaurants and stalls owned by the Afghan refugees were open. The Afghans distanced themselves from the protest rallies being taken out in favour of their own country.

Zia Ahmed, an Afghan refugee who runs a cloth shop in the city, said: “Gen Musharraf has put a ban on the participation of Afghan refugees in protest rallies. We cannot participate in them, though they are being taken out in our favour”.