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Leader of weeks-long Parachinar sit-in arrested: police

An organiser of a weeks-long sit-in being held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Parachinar city located in Kurram district against the prolonged closure of Parachinar-Thall Road was arrested on Sunday, the police said.

The Thall-Parachinar Road — the only thoroughfare leading to the city — has been closed since the Nov 21, 2024 attack on a convoy in the Bagan area that left more than 50 dead. Ensuing clashes stemming from decades-old land disputes claimed at least 130 more lives.

A ceasefire agreement reached in January suffered setbacks as attacks continued on aid and government convoys. However, tribal leaders again agreed on an eight-month truce on March 29.

“The Kurram police have arrested Malik Zartaj in Upper Kurram [tehsil] and Imran Maqbool in Lower Kurram [tehsil],” said a statement from the district police officer’s office, confirming the detention of Zartaj, who was among the leaders of the sit-in that began on March 2.

However, it did not specify any reason for the arrests or any further details about them, adding that raids were also being carried out to arrest PTI’s Khawaja Naheed.

A sit-in against the road closure began on March 2, with elders Zartaj and Musarat Bangash among its participants.

Demonstrations to protest the detention were held at various locations in Parachinar, a Dawn.com correspondent reported. Bangash termed Zartaj’s arrest as “unfortunate”.

He said: “We have been forced to hold a peace rally over Malik Zartaj’s arrest and to [demand] the re-opening of roads. We have been staging a sit-in outside the press club for the past 50 days [but] no step is being taken to establish peace.”

At the sit-in last month, the protesters had said the demonstration would continue until the road was opened. They also lamented that the weekly convoy of supplies for the people there was insufficient.

In the most recent incident, at least three people were killed and several others went missing on Friday when unidentified assailants attacked a group of people travelling from Parachinar to Peshawar in Lower Kurram’s Bagan area, triggering protests across the district.

The district administration has said all possible measures are being taken to provide relief to the people.

Around a month ago, teams from the Pakistan Airports Authority (PAA) and Pakistan International Airlines also assessed Parachinar airport’s operational feasibility for commercial and humanitarian flights.

The KP government in February had announced a fresh operation against militants in Kurram in February, arresting at least 30 miscreants and facilitators in Lower Kurram tehsil.



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