Delawar Jan
PESHAWAR: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) protest
that has blocked Nato supplies has almost come to an unannounced end as it
entered the new year on Wednesday.
The party has wound up four out of five
protest camps set up in Nowshera, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat and at Peshawar
Motorway Toll Plaza. The only sit-in on the Ring Road near Hayatabad Toll Plaza
was deserted on the 40th day of the protest.
Has there been any understanding between
the PTI and federal government or the US to lift the blockade silently? The
Imran Khan’s party officially denies it and insists it is as committed as it
was in disallowing Nato supplies through Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
However, ground reality at the site of the
lone sit-in tells a different story. Container-mounted trucks were hardly
stopped to ascertain their destination. Two white chairs were placed at the
roadside across the road from the camp. One was occupied by a 10-year-old child
holding a Jamaat-e-Islami flag that was taller than him in size. Another was
taken by a young boy with PTI flag in his hands.
The child stood and waved the JI flag to
stop a truck that was approaching. It stopped for a few seconds and the child
allowed it to go. Shipment documents did not go through scrutiny and the driver
did not face quizzing. There were no chants against the US, no clinging onto
the vehicle and no insistence to break the container seals. It did not seem to
be site of the protest that has apparently blocked the Nato supplies to
Afghanistan.
For several weeks after PTI and JI started
the sit-in, the show was never so unimpressive. A crowd of charged workers
would stop every container-laden truck and force the drivers to show shipment
documents. Some workers would cling onto the front of the vehicles, others
would force their way to the front seat, several would stand outside the
driver’s window to quiz him and a number of them would rush to the back of the
container to check the seal. Several drivers were roughed up for resisting
producing the documents.
They returned vehicles on the slightest
suspicion of being bound for Western troops in Afghanistan. And that too in
triumphant manner as dozens of workers in front of the vehicles would chant
anti-US slogans and others would triumphantly climb onto the vehicle to show it
the way back. Everything like that was missing on Wednesday.
Most of the containers passed
uninterrupted as if PTI did not want to block them. The containers coming from
Afghanistan were not checked at all. The US is withdrawing its troops and
military equipment and weapons from Afghanistan this year. It has used this
route for taking back the military equipment and weapons for several months
until PTI blocked it. Though the US has announced it has halted shipment of
cargo from Afghanistan through Torkham, there is hardly any on-ground
confirmation that it has stopped the reverse supplies.
Casting a glance at the camp from across
the road gave a deserted look. All the banners that once buried the camp had
gone. Only a few PTI and JI flags fluttered. And most importantly, only six
workers from both parties manned the camp at 12:45. Only 10 chairs dotted the
site. All the eight DSNG vans had disappeared.
If PTI and JI were not willingly allowing
the trucks to pass, it showed the level of their seriousness in continuing
blockade of the Nato cargo. It also puts to question the much-trumpeted PTI
resolve to continue the blockade for an indefinite period. But even with the
deserted camp, the PTI workers’ rhetoric remains unchanged. “Our resolve to
continue the Nato supplies blockade stays firm,” said Fayyaz Khalil, an
office-bearer of the Town-III chapter who was at the camp.
Provincial Information Secretary of PTI
Ishtiaq Urmar shrugged off the question of any understanding to silently allow
Nato supplies. “There is no question of that. The protest will continue until
drone strikes are stopped,” he told The News. He wondered why the camp was
deserted on Wednesday as they had around 40 workers on Tuesday and returned
four or five meat-filled trucks. “We don’t take blockade of Nato supplies as a
joke,” he said.
The PTI workers at the camp claimed they
still stopped trucks and checked shipment documents. They argued the Nato
trucks no more arrived due to the PTI protest. “The blockade remains enforced,”
Khalil said. “There is no understanding to allow Nato supplies silently.”
The PTI activists said workers could not
come to the camp due to some miscommunication. They said it was the turn of
workers from Nowshera but they did not come. What about JI workers? They too
did not come. “Ten to 15 JI workers daily come to the camp by turn,” said
Farooq Khan, JI’s PK-6 president. “Today our workers have come but PTI workers
are missing,” he claimed. One looked around, but could not find more than six
people. Where are they? And loud laughter came in reply.
Younas Zaheer, PTI Peshawar chapter
general secretary, said the Nowshera chapter of PTI could not get the message.
“There was some misunderstanding,” he argued.
