PESHAWAR – Members of the Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) on Saturday expressed grave concern over the arrest of its workers on the charges of having links with the banned organizations, and asked the authorities concerned to stop illegal crackdown against its workers. Addressing a news conference here at the Press Club, the ASWJ District Peshawar, President Muhammad Ismail Darvesh, said that the district administration has launched a crackdown against their party workers since three weeks, which was quite illegal and unjustified. He categorically stated that the ASWJ has no links with banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, despite that the government has carried out a crackdown against their party workers.
He also said that the allegations levelled against ASWJ were totally wrong and unfounded. We had also condemned the killing of members of the Shia community, and have no need to involve our workers in such target killings, he explained. Darvesh further said that the administration should immediately stop illegal crakedown and harassment of their workers. “Our workers were arrested by police officials by launching unauthorized crackdown in the city two weeks ago, and are still in the lock-up despite several protests,” he informed. He said that they would fully cooperate at all levels, if the administration does not carry out more raids against their workers in city.

“We want to resolve all issues through negotiations instead of taking law into their hands,” Darvesh added.