Angry residents block KKH for hours

ABBOTTABAD: The angry protesters blocked roads, including the Karakoram Highway, for hours on Thursday to protest the killing of a trader a day earlier.
Two groups scuffled yesterday, leaving a local shopkeeper dead and eight others injured in Jhugian area. The provincial government had announced to constitute a judicial commission to probe the incident.
The city remained tense as Abbottabad-Muree Road was blocked for more than nine hours and the KKH was also blocked by angry protesters for more than five hours at two different points where they burnt tyers. The travellers faced great hardships and the government servants and students’ presence in their institutions were thin due to the ugly situation created in the city.
One Bilal Khan reportedly received bullet injuries on Thursday, increasing the total number of injured to nine in two days of aerial firing at Murree Road with intervals after the funeral of Muhammad Naeem who had died a day earlier.
The army was deployed to control the situation. The divisional administration along with provincial Minister Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani, MNA Dr Azhar Khan Jadoon and Maj Gen (r) Ayaz Jadoon carried out at least six rounds of dialogues with protestors but it could not bear any fruit till filing this report.
Local groups led by Waseem Khan Jadoon, former nazim of a union council and now a candidate from the area, and his younger brother also received bullet injuries in the clashes. They have put two demands before the administration: the arrest of DSP Khankhel and removal of Afghan nationals from the area.
An FIR was also lodged in the Cantt Police Station by Waseem Khan where 18 people were nominated, of whom the police have so far arrested six. DSP Khankhel and SHO Javed Khan were also nominated in the FIR as it has been alleged that the person who died and others who were injured received bullet injuries fired by the police.
After the funeral of Naeem Khan, the angry protesters burnt a snooker club and Shama Bakery on Murree Road and they did not allow the fire brigade vehicle to reach the spot causing huge loss to the shops and club. In a search operation to arrest the people nominated in the FIR, the police arrested more than 30 people from the Afghan Colony adjacent to the area.
DIG police Hazara Akhtar Hayat Khan said that the DSP Abbottabad and SHO Nawanshehr were suspended on the directives of the provincial government and a judicial commission has been constituted to probe the matter. He also confirmed arrest of at least 70 people from Jhugian during a search operation.