KHYBER: Angry tribesmen staged a protest demonstration at Ali Masjid and blocked the main Peshawar-Torkham Highway for several hours on Sunday against highhandedness of police.

The protesters alleged that some police officials forced their vehicle to stop near Jamrud while their female family members were also along with them.

They said that police officials insisted that the women were drug carriers and forcibly searched their personal belongings despite the fact that they were given firm assurances that it was a respectable family and had never been involved in illegal drug business.

Kifayat Khan and Khalid Khan, whose female family members were searched by police, alleged that the officials offered them `honourable` exemption from body search if they handed them over half of the drugs, if they were carrying them.

They said that their vehicle was later tal(en to a auto worl(shop for further search while the women were kept under illegal detention. They added that nothing objectionable could be recov-ered from their vehicle.

They demanded immediate suspension of the police officials involved in their illegal detention and subjecting their women to unlawful body search and a departmental enquiry into their acts.

Meanwhile, scores of physically-challenged persons also held a protest demonstration in Landi Kotal against loss of their manual jobs at Torkham border.

Ashraf Gul, a spokesman for the protesters, said that the world community was treating them as special persons but in Pakistan they were considered unfit for any job. He said that they were deprived of any decent occupation they had.

He said that hundreds of the physically-challenged persons were working as daily wagers and most of them were the only breadwinners for their families but the new policy of border management deprived them of their legitimate earnings.

The protesters demanded of the federal government to issue them special cards so that they could continue their legal jobs.-Correspondent