The sit-in will continue the whole day on the second day on Sunday as the protest forced the authorities to suspend supplies to the NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Officials say that nearly 70 per cent of NATO supplies are transported through Pakistan, the most risky but shorter supply route. Suspected militants regularly attack NATO trucks in Pakistan, which has also forced the U.S. to sign agreements with Russia for alternate supply route.
Officials said that supply trucks and oil tankers for around 150,000 NATO troops were stopped in eastern Punjab province from heading to the border region in view of the protest. Some 300 trucks and oil tankers daily pass through Pakistan's Khyber Pass. A similar number also enter Afghanistan through Chaman border in southwestern Balochistan province, they say.
Cricketer-turned politician, Imran Khan, head of Tehrik-e-Insaf (Justice Movement), who had called for two-day protest, also spent the night with hundreds of protestors along the main highway, connecting Pakistan with Afghanistan.
A senior leader of Tehrik-e-Insaf party, Asad Qaisar, said the protestors will also spend the day on Sunday and Imran Khan will announce future plan at the conclusion of the sit-in. The police did not intervene. Witnesses said that people from other areas started coming to join the protest Sunday morning, he said. Political leaders of other parties will join the protest to show unity, Qaisar said.
Khan told thousands of people on the first day of protest in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, that more protest rallies will be planned in the coming days unless the CIA stops drone strikes.
“The government has failed to stop the U.S. strikes which kill innocent people, including women and children,” he told reporters while laying on the road.
Anger runs high in Pakistan against the U.S. drone strikes in the Waziristan tribal, which CIA considers as the base for al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban militants for planning attacks across the border into Afghanistan.
Despite the public resentment and Pakistan’s protest, the U.S. administration has rejected any possibility to halt the strikes.
The protest comes just a day after two U.S. drone aircraft rained missiles into North Waziristan tribal region which killed 25 people including women and children, according to tribesmen in the region.
Several opposition Islamic, political groups and tribal elders are also taking part in the protest, the first ever big anti-drones protest. Several affected families from drone strikes have also joined the protest.
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