MIANWALI, April 15: The recent action against the Bhakkar district coordination officer and district police officer by the provincial government for their alleged failure to stop wheat and flour smuggling has stirred the local bureaucracy and police. The local police have arisen from a deep slumber and started taking stern measures to prevent wheat and flour smuggling from its perforated boundary towards neighbouring districts of the NWFP and Punjab.
In the last 48 hours alone, they have foiled many such attempts and confiscated 8,280 sacks of wheat and 779 bags of flour while impounding eight vehicles being used for the transportation and arresting nine people.
The City police impounded a truck laden with 1,100 sacks of wheat at Ikram Shaheed Chowk here which was on its way towards Bannu from Karachi and arrested three people, Naqeebullah, Omer Daraz and Muhammad Yaqub, all belonging to North Waziristan.
The Musakhel police intercepted two trucks carrying wheat on Mianwali-Rawalpindi Road and arrested Muhammad Nazir and Muhammad Zahid.
Similarly, three trucks laden with wheat and flour were impounded at Jinnah Barrage check-post and Muhammad Asghar, Qamar Din and Raees Khan were arrested.
In another bid, the police intercepted two Bannu-bound trucks near Dara Tang check-post and arrested Lateefullah Khan and Ghulam Muhammad.
The flour is not available in the open market here despite the fact that eight flourmills are crushing government-supplied wheat on a regular basis. However, an improvement in the chaotic flour supply situation was very much likely after the stringent preventive measure being taken by the police now.
LAWYERS: The local legal fraternity continued their strike on fifth consecutive day to protest torching and ransacking of their chambers, barroom and library by rioters allegedly showing solidarity with former federal minister Dr Sher Afgan, who was roughed up by a mob in Lahore on April 8.The lawyers threatened that they would continue their strike besides taking to the street if the police did not arrest the suspects named in the FIR by April 21.
District Bar Association (DBA) President Sultan Sikandar Khan stated this while addressing a press conference at the bar library here on Tuesday.
The DBA president said that a week had lapsed since the gory incident, but the police had not arrested any of the suspects named in the FIR and they were roaming around freely and doing their businesses.
Khan said that he and his colleagues had recognised the rioters, who were sprinkling petrol on their barroom and chambers and later setting them on fire. He said it was a planned strategy crafted at the presidency, as chambers of lawyers, who were political rivals of Dr. Sher Afgan, alone were set ablaze while the rest were spared.
He said that chambers of all lawyers should have been torched without any discrimination if it were a reaction of Dr Sher Afgan’s manhandling.
Khan said that lawyers’ fraternity had reached to starvation since launching its movement a year ago but they were still united yet determined and would stand resolute till their demands were met and objectives, including establishment of rule of law, supremacy of the Constitution and independence of the judiciary, were achieved.
He added that Dr. Sher Afgan and his relatives were so arrogant that none of them or any of the 21 suspects named in the FIR came to them to console or regret the hooliganism.
Belonging to Watta Khel tribe and himself a staunch supporter of Dr Sher Afgan, Sultan Sikandar Khan said that since he was representing lawyers’ community, he would never let down its cause.
Earlier, the DBA held its general house meeting, which unanimously passed a resolution demanding the insertion of Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorist Act in the FIR already registered.
It is pertinent to mention here that most of accused are workers of traders’ associations, relatives and supporters of Dr. Sher Afgan and that’s why the police were reluctant to arrest them. The traders have also threatened a shutter-down strike if their companions were arrested.
However, Dawn has learnt that traders have split into two groups; one is threatening the strike while their other is opposing it, saying that culprits, snatching morsels from lawyers’ mouth, deserve exemplary punishment.
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