Over dozen more killed on Sunday
Tariq Saeed Peshawar
Following the government’s efforts to ease tensions in Kurram, a ceasefire was agreed between the two warring tribes in the region on Sunday.
The provincial government decided to constitute a high-powered commission to settle land disputes between the tribes in the Kurram district as 18 more people were killed in fresh clashes yesterday.
The violence followed Thursday’s deadly attack, when a convoy of around 200 vehicles came under heavy gunfire in Kurram’s densely populated Bagan town, killing at least 64 people.
The KP chief minister’s adviser on information Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif, in a statement issued on Suday, said that a ceasefire was agreed for seven days between the tribes, both of which also decided to return each other’s dead bodies and prisoners.
A government delegation met the members of the Shia tribe yesterday before meeting the Sunni tribe leaders today, after which it returned to Peshawar, Barrister Saif said.
Earlier, the bloody clashes between rival warring groups in the volatile Kurram tribal district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa continued on the second consecutive day at least a dozen more people were reported dead and scores others injured on Sunday thus taking the death toll to over 30 that also include women and children. KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has vowed to utilize all available options to restore peace in violence-hit Kurram district.
The restive Kurram district, it may be recalled, was bathed in blood on Thursday last when in a fresh way of violence the heartless terrorists killed at least 45 people including women and children when they indiscriminately opened fire on a convoy of the passenger’s vehicles in the morning. More than three dozen people including men in uniform sustained serious injuries in the ambush.
“At least 12 more people lost their lives on Sunday in clashes between two communities in Kurram that brought the death toll to over thirty during the past twenty four hours”. The Police and the officials of the district administration said adding around two dozen others sustained injuries during the fierce armed clashes between the rival tribes that took place in densely populated Bagan and Alizai areas of Lower Kurram.
Official reports say the clashes occurred in the villages of KaluKunj, BadshahKot, and Bagan Bazar in Lower Kurram, where armed individuals set fire to several houses, leaving many innocent women, children, and elderly people dead. Following the fresh clashes, around 300 families have reportedly left their homes and shifted to safe places.
