Residents block road to Kolai-Palas

MANSEHRA: The tribesmen from Kolai staged a sit-in on a central bridge blocking the only road linking Kolai-Palas with the rest of the province and asked the chief minister to de-notify the Sair Ghaziabad as the district headquarters.

“Our protest would continue until the entire district administration leaves the Sair Ghaziabad and the chief minister restores the Batara as the district headquarters of Kolai-Palas,” Ali Gohar Azad, a local elder told protesters, who staged a sit-in at the Palas Bridge after marching all the way to the Sair Ghaziabad from Kolai.

The protesters, who had started marching towards Sair Ghaziabad on Friday morning reached at the Palas Bridge built at the Indus River and blocked it to traffic.’

Azad said that porters would not end sit-in until their demand of annulling the Sair Ghaziabad as the district headquarters was met.

“We want the chief minister to realise the sensitivity of the situation and restore the Batara as the district headquarters of the Kolai-Palas,” Qazi Saifullah, another elder told the protesters.

Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Kolai-Palas Tariq Khan and District police Officer Said Mukhtar Shah held talks with elders of Kolai to defuse the tension but it remained inconclusive.

It would be pertinent to mention here that former chief minister Pervez Khattak had given the Kolai-Palas the status of a district and notified Batara as its headquarters in 2017.