Peshawar turns into battlefield

PESHAWAR: Like the cops in the southern districts of NWFP and Malakand Division, the police force in Peshawar is now literally at war with the militants.

It is a warlike situation as schools, colleges and universities have been closed to avoid any act of sabotage. The educational institutions in the province would remain closed for another week until November 2 now because of terror threat.

Restaurants and hotels have also been shut because of threats. A few people visit parks, bazaars and recreational spots these days, fearing bomb blasts and suicide attacks.Peshawar neither witnessed such a situation in its history nor was it ever expected by the present generation. Scare and fear prevail at the public places and offices while terrorism and risk to the lives and properties of commoners is ever-present.

Every sphere of life, including business activities, industry sector, sports, etc, has severely suffered because of the worsening law and order and several threats. This has triggered psychological disorders among civilians and law-enforcers.

For the past several years, militants have been making all-out efforts to strike throughout the provincial capital, while the Frontier Police with lesser resources and meagre salaries are thwarting their bids to protect the public.

With bomb blasts and rocket attacks, militants have succeeded on a few occasions during the past few weeks but on the other hand the police force has done well by foiling their designs. The force has defused scores of planted bombs and has arrested several terrorists, including suspected suicide bombers, on their way to hit their targets.

This needs to be admitted that the provincial capital is going through a critical phase. For being surrounded by the troubled tribal areas from three sides, the city has been the easiest target for the terrorists.

The police are doing the maximum that a civilian force can do in this volatile situation. The police have erected a circle around the city, with blocking all the entry routes by deploying additional cops across Peshawar.

Even smaller routes leading to Landi Arbab, Landi Akhun Mohammad, Tor Baba, Phandu Road, Gulbahar, Kamboh and several other insignificant points have been covered by erecting wooden barriers and deploying two or three policemen to check the vehicles, entering the urban limits of the district. They perform duty till late at night.

“This is not an easy job. We are lacking the force to be positioned at these points; we had no option but to withdraw policemen from other places to be deployed on these points,” a police official told this scribe.

The negative side of the extraordinary security arrangements is that the barriers and manning every entry point have been bothering commuters. “We have stopped going to bazaars to avoid being checked at almost half a dozen barricades every time,” said Israr Bacha, a resident of Dora Road.

Bashir Khan of Kamboh appreciated the policemen for doing a great job while putting their lives at risk on these exposed and vulnerable makeshift posts, but complained that an ordinary commuter suffered a lot at these barricades in case of not having the original documents of the vehicle, national identity card or other documents.

While police have circled the city with additional deployment of cops alongside the Ring Road, even then terrorists have succeeded on some occasions to break into the urban limits. The five major bomb blasts in the city since September 26 and entry of several miscreants into the city limits speak volumes about the loopholes in the security system. The planting of landmines by some miscreants on Sunday near Canal Road, close to the Peshawar International Airport, is an example of that.