Attacks on minorities: ‘To relocate protest camp, accept demands’
Half of Parade Avenue is now occupied by Majlis-e-Wahdat-ul-Muslimeen (MWM) members, while the other half is hosting the city police deployed to secure the area.
The city police on Friday failed to get MWM activists to vacate the area despite orders from the Interior Ministry to remove all protesters from the Red Zone for security reasons. However, the city administration and the police did manage to move the camps of missing persons’ relatives and another run by teachers from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), which were both relocated to the area near the National Press Club in Sector F-6.
Negotiations between the administration and the MWM leadership failed to make any headway as hundreds of protesters offered Friday prayers led by Allama Shifa Najafi at Parade Avenue.
“It’s been over a week since we have been sitting here in protest, but the government seems to have little concern in improving law and order in Gilgit,” said MWM Secretary General Allama Nasir Abbas Jafri.
The Secretariat police deployed dozens of riot police personnel at the site of the prayers for the security of participants. However, they were removed following another round of failed negotiations between MWM and the administration.
An official of the city administration said that they are constantly in touch with the local MWM leadership and were trying to convince them to relocate their sit-in camp.
Addressing participants in the Friday congregation, Jafri asked for implementation of the charter of demands that the government agreed to after the Chilas incident.
He also demanded that the government hand over security responsibilities for the Karakoram Highway (KKH) to the army and to provide alternate routes for residents of Gilgit to travel to Rawalpindi.
The MWM leaders further said that his organisation will hold countrywide protests if their demands are not met by the end of this week, or if the government fails to arrest the people responsible for the Chilas and Kohistan killings.
A majority of protestors dispersed peacefully after attending the prayers, however, a good number of youth stayed at the sit-in camp set up on a green belt along Parade Avenue.
The riot police were later pulled back, but all roads around the avenue remained closed for traffic while Secretariat police personnel were ordered to hold their positions at the site.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 14th, 2012.
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Our rulers have no concerned for the public. People are killed daily and government is failed to provide security to its citizens. The people of Gilgit from both sects are suffering for last ten days due to curfew. Shortage of food items and medicines, but government is sleeping, as usual.