(MENAFN- Pajhwok Afghan News) JALALABAD (Pajhwok): Protesting residents on Friday closed the Jalalabad-Torkham highway for six hours in Behsud district of eastern Nangarhar province after what they alleged police demolished their homes and killed two people and injured six others.
The angry protestors said police opened fire at them after they resisted demolishing of their homes in Samarkhel area under the pretext of preventing land grabbing.
However, the provincial government accused the residents of firing at the police who were sent to the area to prevent land grabbing.
The protestors, who blocked thousands of vehicles on both sides of the road, said police surrounded their area under the pretext of launching an operation and then started demolishing people's home and opened fire after locals showed resistance.
A tribal elder and participant of the demonstration, Malak Aman, said people who lived in the area had fled their homes in districts due to insecurity.
He said the government instead of facilitating the uprooted families was demolishing their homes and firing at them.
Malak Gul, another protestor, asked the government to punish the police officials who fired at the civilians. He said the dead and wounded were shifted to hospital after their homes had been demolished.
Luqman, who has been living in the area for the past 15 years, said he was not home when their house was demolished by security forces.
'I had gone to find work and earn some money to feed my family. When I returned, I found my family in the open and my home razed to ground.'
He said Daesh and were not allowing them to live peacefully in their own areas while the government was expelling them from places where they took refuge.
Stranded passengers lashed out at the protestors, saying they were victimizing people for something that belonged to the government.
One of them, Aziz Shinwari, said: 'My home is in Ghanikhel district where I cannot go in the evening because of insurgents, but these people have blocked the road and we are in great trouble.'
Another passenger on his way to Torkham said the protestors for solution to their problem had left stranded thousands of people.
' are in the vehicles, even patients are not allowed to proceed, they should block the road to the governor's house, they should not block a general road.'
The governor's spokesman, Attaullah Khogyani, said members of the commission on land grabbing had demolished structures on usurped land in Dewal area of Rodat district.
He said the land usurpers fired at and beat the commission members, who did not react despite suffering casualties.
Police officials who were present at the scene refused to comment on the issue.
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