Unwavering stance: Protesters turn back Afghanistan-bound NATO containers

PTI officials claim containers were pretending to carry goods for a private company.

PESHAWAR: Two containers, thought to be carrying goods for Nato troops in Afghanistan, were sent back on Sunday, the ninth day of the sit-in against drone strikes in Peshawar.

The transport vehicles were sent packing after protesters, led by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) suspected their documents to be fabricated. The documents, according to PTI office-bearers, were forged.

PTI Peshawar General Secretary Younis Zaheer, who has been leading the sit-in, said the two containers, under the guise of carrying goods for a private company, were stopped for verification. When their seals were checked, it seemed they were carrying Nato supplies.

“We confiscated the invoices and checked them with the company’s terminal and warehouse in Karachi. The company denied supplying goods to Afghanistan on weekends, which proves the documents were forged,” said Zaheer. The containers were later sent back, he added.



The Nato containers were sent back whereas those carrying ordinary goods to Afghanistan were allowed to pass.

Coalition partners in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government, PTI, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad Pakistan (AJIP) have set up protest camps at the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway Interchange and Hayatabad Toll Plaza. There, volunteers check identification documents to distinguish Nato trucks from regular cargo carriers.

Earlier on Saturday, the K-P government chalked out a plan to protest in front of the Parliament House in Islamabad on December 5 to pressurise the federal government for passing a resolution against drone strikes and Nato supply lines.

The decision was taken in a meeting, attended by Minister for Information Shah Farman, Minister for Local Government Inayatullah Khan and Minister for IT and Agriculture Shahram Tarakai. The protest will be held outside the Parliament House after the Senate and National Assembly sessions start on December 4, to make it more effective.

A protest against the drone strike was earlier held in front of the US Consulate in Peshawar. A resolution on the matter was also presented to the consulate’s officials.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 2^nd, 2013.