Day 58: Blockade of NATO supplies continues

PESHAWAR: Activists of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) accompanied their coalition partners in the provincial government to continue blocking the Nato supply routes to Afghanistan for the 58th consecutive day. The Nato supply route was earlier blocked at two different locations in Peshawar. The leadership then decided to end one of the camps at the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway Interchange and instead continued protest near Hayatabad Toll Plaza. On Sunday, activists from Charsadda led by MPA Arif Yousafzai visited the sit-in camp at Hayatabad, chanted anti-US slogans and demanded the government to stop drone strikes.  They said that they would continue with the sit-in until the attacks stop. Following a drone strike on November 21, 2013, which killed six people, PTI Chairman Imran Khan announced during an address in Peshawar two days later that Nato supply routes will be blocked Khan maintains that until the US stops drone strikes, the Nato supply route in K-P will remain blocked.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2014.