Seven people were killed and dozens injured as the activists of Tehrik-e-Sooba Hazara took to the streets in Abbottabad, former winter-metropolis of the province, despite imposition of Section 144 against the renaming of NWFP as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday. The provincial government has announced a judicial inquiry into the incident.
"We are going for a judicial probe into the incident to fix responsibility before taking action against any one in this regard," stated Mian Iftikhar Hussein, spokesman of the provincial government in a hurriedly called news conference in the provincial metropolis.
He said that they are democratic people, respect dissent and want the resolution of the matters through negotiations. He requested the political leadership and influential of Abbottabad to constitute and empower a committee for holding negotiations with the government. The provincial administration is attributing the occurrence of the incident to the political rivalry of PML-N and PML-Q. The local leadership of both the factions of PML is protesting against the renaming of the province as Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa and demanding the curving out of a new province of Hazara. The situation was though tense in the Division since the approval of the 18th Amendment by the National Assembly.
However, it took ugly turn when PML-N one of the signatory of the Constitutional Reforms Bill announced holding a workers convention to pacify its members in the region and the rival faction of PML-Q announced blocking the political event by force. The provincial administration clamped section 144 for maintenance of public order. However, it prevented the arrest of any political worker and attributed the protest to the democratic right of the opponents of the renaming of the province.
Mian Iftikhar Hussein said that the provincial government has given free hand for staging peaceful protests and urged all political workers to be cautious and adopt peaceful means in protests than resorting to go for confrontation. He further urged the political workers to accept the rights of each other.
For maintenance of public order and for disperse of the protesters the police lobbed tear gas shells and battens and fire rubber bullets, and fire as last resort into them, which is unfortunate incident. The protesters also took in siege the Cantt Police station and pelted it with stones; however, at least eight people were injured when police retaliated.
Mansehra Road, main highway passing through the cantonment area remained blocked for all kinds of traffic for two hours because of the rampant violence. Several people went unconscious when police resorted to tear-gassing in a bid to break up the demonstrators at Fawarah Chawk. In Mansehra, another important city, the student organisations blocked Kashmir road at Garhi Habibullah while staging protest demo there.
The workers of Hazara province movement reached Fawwara Chawk in defiance of section-144 in force in Abbotabad and choked Murree road near Grid station. Later on, police shelled the protesters with tear-gas which led several into unconsciousness.
Heavy contingents of additional police from Mardan, Swabi and other nearby areas have been deployed in Abbottabad areas. The Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) was persistently patrolling the city. However, the hide-and-seek between the demonstrators and police remained continued for long leaving various roads of the city blocked and tyres were set ablaze on city streets.
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