Swat protest ends after successful negotiations with administration

• Family of slain van driver ends sit-in after nearly two days.
• Administration says family of deceased to be compensated.
• Driver was killed in an attack Monday; a student was injured.

SWAT: After nearly two days of protests, the family members of the slain van driver — who was killed in an attack a day earlier — ended their sit-in following successful negotiations with the district administration.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Mingora after unidentified men shot dead the van driver and left a student critically injured — and so far, no organisation has taken responsibility for the attack.

During the protests, the family members of the deceased — along with thousands of people — demanded an end to terrorism amid rising fears of degradation in the city's law and order situation.

Following the negotiations, the district administration said that the deceased driver's family would be compensated, and one of his family members would be awarded a job.

"The jirga elders and the affected family will be kept in the loop about the development in the case [to apprehend the killers]," the district administration added.

The funeral prayers of the deceased have been offered.

Earlier during the protest, the people participating in it carried placards and white flags as they chanted slogans against terrorists.

"Insecurity will not be tolerated in Swat. It is the responsibility of the government and state institutions to protect the citizens," the protesting citizens stressed, demanding action against the terrorists.

The Swat Valley, where the attack took place, was once overrun by the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who shot Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai on a school bus in the same city ten years ago.

The area has seen a resurgence of TTP with a spike in attacks in recent weeks.

"The attacker fled the scene and a search operation has been launched," police official Ali Badshah told AFP, adding that the wounded boy was aged between 10 and 11.

Locals in Mingora, the city where the attack took place, fear it was carried out by the TTP but they have denied responsibility for Monday's shooting.

— Additional input from AFP