LAKKI MARWAT: Police officials ended their four-day-long sit-in and opened the Peshawar-Karachi highway and other roads in Lakki Marwat for vehicular traffic after the authorities accepted their major demands that they wouldn’t be forced to launch attacks against armed groups and that the security forces would be called back or confined to their camps.

An announcement to this effect was made by a protesting police official in the presence of local elders and senior police officials late Thursday night.

Elders along with Capital City Police Officer Peshawar Qasim Ali Khan, Frontier Reserve Police (FRP) Commandant Ashfaq Anwar, Regional Police Officer Bannu Imran Shahid and other officials engaged the protesters’ representatives in negotiations at the police lines in the District Headquarters Complex, Tajazai, and convinced them to wind up the protest camp.

Former district nazim Ishfaq Minakhel said the negotiations continued for several hours and finally they succeeded in persuading protesters to end their agitation.

Bajaur sit-in also called off as authorities promise early arrest of attackers

The protesting police official told the gathering of his colleagues that their demands had been accepted.

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“The authorities have assured us that there will be no compulsion on the police to launch action against armed groups,” he said.

He said police would be provided with more armoured personnel carrier vehicles and other resources to enhance their professional capabilities. He claimed the security forces would be called back or confined to their camps.

The police official said the authorities would not initiate any adverse action against the policemen, who took part in the sit-in.

The policemen had set up a protest camp at Lt-Adnan Shaheed Square, popularly known as Tajazai Chowk, closing Indus Highway for vehicular traffic.

As soon as the protesters uprooted their tents and dispersed from the venue, the transporters, who had been stuck on the main artery for the last four days, took a sigh of relief and set out for their destinations.

In Bannu, the protesting police officials also ended their sit-in and handed over a charter of demands to the district police authorities. They had closed the Bannu-Miranshah Road after establishing the protest camp at Maulana Abdul Sattar Shah Bukhari Shah Chowk against the gun attack on a police constable, Jan Alam, in Domel area.

Traders had also downed their shutters to express solidarity with the protesting police officials.

On Friday, the protesters gave a list of their demands to district police officer Ziauddin Ahmed and made clear that they would again come onto roads if their grievances were not addressed.

Mr Zia assured them that he would take up their issues with higher authorities concerned for an early solution.

Meanwhile, a sit-in staged by the police and local residents against Wednesday’s attack, which left a policeman and a polio worker martyred, ended in Bajaur district on Friday evening.

A large number of people, mostly youth, social and political activists, attended the gathering held on the main Khar-Munda Road in Haji Lawang area.

The attack on the polio team took place in the hilly Salarzai tehsil.

The protesters ended the agitation after local elders and members of a jirga formed by the district administration met with them and assured them that the perpetrators of the attack would be arrested soon.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2024