Running feud: Qambar tense after tribal clash

QAMBAR-SHAHDADKOT: Gunmen shot dead a tribal chief of Qambar-Shahdadkot district on Wednesday. Victim Muhammad Panach Choliyani was a cousin of Imdad Choliyani, a former food minister and leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

After the death the area turned into a no-go area. The Warrah police registered a case on Choliyani’s son’s complaint against the chieftain of the Chandios and former tehsil nazim Sardar Ahmed Chandio. But this prompted a reaction from the Chandios and they protested on the streets, set tyres on fire and threatened shops until they closed. They had called for a strike on Friday. The entire area was tense.

Sardar Ahmed Chandio told The Express Tribune that he was being politically victimised. “Since I am a political opponent of Imdad Choliyani of the PML-N, that is why a case has been registered against me,” he said.

The Choliyanis are a sub-caste of the Chandios but the killing was the culmination of a dispute over a free-will marriage of a couple from both tribes. At least five people have been killed so far.

The Qambar police chief said that a woman from the Sakhani tribe, who was a relative of the famous  folk singer Urs Chandio, had married a Choliyani man. In retaliation for the perceived insult, the Sakhanis kidnapped a Choliyani woman and registered a kidnapping case.

Acting on the kidnapping charges, the police raided the folk singer’s house in a bid to recover the woman, but the people inside the house put up a resistance. A shoot-out ensued and three of Urs Chandio’s relatives were killed.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th, 2011.