PESHAWAR / LAKKI MARWAT: Traders affiliated with the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf have requested party chairman Imran Khan for a meeting over an “alarming” law and order situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“I would like to bring to your kind attention that extortion and kidnapping have started again in KP, especially in Peshawar,” the Insaf Traders’ Wing (ITW) said in a letter dated Dec 12.

The letter, seen by Dawn, read that the law and order situation had reached “an alarming position” and noted that the houses of former provincial minister Haji Muhammad Javed and Awami National Party Senator Hidayat Ullah were targeted recently.

The business community informed the former prime minister that a message had been conveyed to the highest level in the provincial government, but no action had been taken so far.

Second man beheaded in Bannu within 10 days

The letter, signed by ITW leader Atif Haleem, said residents in the provincial capital were concerned about the rising trend of extortion and kidnapping.

Mr Haleem said his own father was a victim of extortion and was killed in 2016 for refusing to pay the money.

“It is requested to please intervene and take concrete steps to control the situation. I would request for a meeting along with the business community to further discuss,” it said.

An ITW member, who wished not to be named, told Dawn that businesspeople were leaving KP and the industry was being shifted from the province. He said businesspeople were being threatened with grave consequences if they failed to pay extortion.

SSP Operation Peshawar Kashif Abbasi told Dawn that cases were reported to the local police station and later forwarded to the counterterrorism department (CTD), which dealt with extortion cases and was investigating the complaints. He said the CTD had arrested 60 individuals this year on extortion charges.

Beheaded body found

Meanwhile, the body of a man, allegedly killed and beheaded by militants in the Zindi Akbar Khan area of Bannu district, was found on Wednesday morning, police sources said.

This is the second beheading incident within a span of 10 days in Bannu. A Frontier Constabulary (FC) soldier faced the same fate earlier this month.

Police sources said the gruesome incident occurred in the limits of the Haved police station. The slain man, identified as Qamar Ali Khan, 40, was a grocery vendor belonging to Zindi Falak Sher village.

A police official said that Kamal Khan, a brother of the slain shopkeeper, found the body in the Zindi Akbar Khan Chowk and shifted it to a hospital in Bannu city.

Mr Kamal told police that on the night of Dec 12, his brother had gone missing from his shop. Mr Kamal and his relatives tried to trace him but in vain.

He said that on Dec 14, he was at home in the morning when someone informed him that the body of his brother was found. He told police that his family had no enmity with anyone.

A chit, purportedly written by a militant group calling itself Ittehadul Mujahideen, was pasted on a wall near the body wherein the deceased was mentioned as a “spy”.

It said the deceased remained in captivity for investigation for two nights and a video would also be shared after some time. It said the group had no regrets for the killing and it was a message for everyone to stop spying.

The police said that the body was handed over to relatives after medical and legal formalities.

They said they had registered a case against unknown killers under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code and began an investigation.

On Dec 5, an FC official was murdered and beheaded by militants in Janikhel town. An almost identical chit was also pasted near his body and the deceased was declared a “spy”.

The militants had also killed the 18-year-old son of the soldier. The assailants had hung the head from a tree in the Bachki market with a chit forbidding tribespeople to attend the funeral.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2022