Janikhel (), also spelled Jani Khel or Zonikhel () is a town and

union council Union council may refer to: *Union Council of Ministers The Union Council of Ministers is the Cabinet (government), principal executive organ of the Government of India, which serves to aid and advise the President of India in execution of t ...

in the

Bannu District Bannu District (, ) is a district in the Bannu Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Its status as a district was formally recorded in 1861 during the British Raj. This district constitutes one of the 26 districts that coll ...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ; , ; abbr. KP or KPK), formerly known as the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Northern Pakistan, northwestern region of the country, Khyber ...

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. It is located at 32°47'55N 70°30'23E and has an elevation of 336 metres (1105 feet).

Janikhel protest

On 21 March 2021, mutilated corpses of four teenage boys were found in the Seentanga area of Janikhel. The locals protested for a week against the killings along with the dead bodies, which was followed by a planned long march from Janikhel to

Peshawar Peshawar is the capital and List of cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by population, largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is the sixth most populous city of Pakistan, with a district p ...

and

Islamabad Islamabad (; , ; ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's tenth-most populous city with a population of over 1.1 million and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Bu ...

. The protesters complained that several

military operation A military operation (op) is the coordinated military actions of a state, or a non-state actor, in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state or actor's favor. Operati ...

s were carried out against

militant The English word ''militant'' is both an adjective and a noun, and it is generally used to mean vigorously active, combative and/or aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in "militant reformers". It comes from the 15th century Lat ...

s in the region, yet kidnappings and

targeted killing Targeted killing is a form of assassination carried out by governments Extrajudicial killing, outside a judicial procedure or a battlefield. Since the late 20th century, the legal status of targeted killing has become a subject of contention wit ...

s frequently occurred. Their main demands were: *A

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

guarantee that the

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

and other militants would not be permitted to operate in the area *Lodging of an

FIR Firs are evergreen coniferous trees belonging to the genus ''Abies'' () in the family Pinaceae. There are approximately 48–65 extant species, found on mountains throughout much of North and Central America, Eurasia, and North Africa. The genu ...

against the security official in whose jurisdiction the murders took place On 29 March, as the protesters had reached

Domel Domel () also spelled as Domail is a main town in Domel tehsil of Bannu District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is also union council of Bannu District in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Domel is inhabited mostly by Ahmadzai Wazir tribe of ...

Bannu Bannu (, ), also called Bani Gul or Bani (, ) is a city located on the Kurram River in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is the capital of Bannu Division. Bannu's residents are primarily members of the Banuchi tribe and speak Banuch ...

, the long march was postponed after an agreement was signed with them by

Mahmood Khan Mahmood Khan (Urdu, Pashto: ; born 30 October 1970) is a Pakistani politician who was the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from August 2018 till January 2023 and a member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). He had been a member of the Pro ...

, the

Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the head of government of the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The chief minister leads the legislative branch of the provincial government, and is elected by the Provincial Assembly. As lon ...

. On 31 May, Malik Naseeb Khan, a tribal chief of Janikhel, was shot dead by militants, which sparked another wave of protest along with the dead body of the slain chieftain. On 23 June, a protester named Wahid Khan was shot dead and several others were injured as the police blocked the protesters from marching towards Islamabad. On 27 June, the tribesmen postponed the protest again after the authorities released four missing men from Janikhel who had been victims of

enforced disappearance An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person with the support or acquiescence of a State (polity), state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the person's fate or whereabouts with the i ...

References

Union councils of Bannu District Populated places in Bannu District {{Bannu-geo-stub