Hundreds of protestors stormed a local family park on Sunday in Bannu, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa demanding the park be shut down or women stand prohibited from entering the venue.
The protestors congregated at Jinnah Family Park in Bannu Cantt on Sunday after a prayer leader delivered a sermon against alleged happenings there at Masjid Hafiz Ji. They included the religious, activists of all major political parties and local businessmen and traders. The men claimed that the park was serving as a site for obscenity and vulgarity in guise of recreation and demanded that local administration shut it down.
In Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, local clerics stormed a family park, to shut it down or ban the entry of women because the space was “promoting obscenity”. Last week women were abused and pushed out of a park in the nearby Lakki Marwat district for the same reason. pic.twitter.com/dBh54Nc7Ip
— Iftikhar Firdous (@IftikharFirdous) August 21, 2022
The clerics attempted to break off the park doors, at which point local security forces had to resort to aerial firing to disperse the crowd. The also chanted slogans against the local authorities and park administration. They said the Bannu Cantt Station Commander must immediately shut the park down and threatened to stage further protests if it remained open.
The men claimed the park had brought doubt and aspersion on the ‘civilised and disciplined’ district of Bannu, saying the presence of women at recreational spots was intolerable.
