Intimidation? Six arrested for aerial firing near census teams

ABBOTTABAD: In what is believed to be an attempt to intimidate, unidentified people in a remote Abbottabad fired into the air just as census staff were working nearby.

Six villagers were also arrested after the incident.

According to police, census staff were working in the Khalkhaitar village within the remits of Sherwan police when some people resorted to aerial firing.

While the census staff were unhurt, security personnel escorting
them and maintaining security in the area immediately swung into action and launched a search for the culprits.

The tracked six villagers to the nearby forest area of Sherwan and arrested them.

However, police said that they had not lodged an FIR against the six people they had apprehended, noting that they were still conducting an inquiry on who had opened fire and why and whether the motive was to target the census team.

Another police official, who did not wish to be named, said that suspects they had apprehended were drug dealers who presumably resorted to aerial firing to scare the census team from their den fearing that a raid was taking place to arrest them.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 21^st, 2017.