Protest planned: Afridis accuse Orakzais of land grabbing

Voice fear that the issue can spark a blood feud

PESHAWAR: The Afridi tribe accused tribesmen from the Orakzai Agency on Thursday of illegally occupying their lands in the Akakhel Okho Kandao area and urged the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa governor and military officers concerned to persuade their rivals to hand over their property, otherwise they will stage a sit-in outside the Governor House.

Speaking at a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club here, Haji Muhammad Iqbal Afridi said that their lands had been illegally occupied since 2009 after members of the Afridi tribe were internally displaced.

Haji Iqbal Afridi, who was accompanied by Ajab Khan Afridi and Haji Abdul Qayyum Afridi, said that the Orakzai tribesmen were also forced to vacate their lands when an anti-terrorist operation was launched in their area, but they were allowed to return sooner, adding that the rehabilitation of the Afridis had been delayed, because of which thousands of lands owned by the Afridi tribesmen had been occupied.

“We contacted political administrations of both Khyber and Orakzai agencies and asked local elders to intervene and help resolve this dispute, but our efforts failed to yield any result,” he complained.

Stressing the need for quickly resolving the dispute, Ajab Khan Afridi of the Akakhel area warned that if the issue remained unresolved, it might lead to a blood feud and the Afridi tribesmen would hold political administrations and the K-P governor responsible for any untoward situation.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2017.