Funeral prayers of 16 slain coal miners offered at Alpuri Shangla

Thirty-four coalminers went missing in K-P’s Shangla district in September 2011

SHANGLA:

The funeral prayer of 16 coal miners was offered at district headquarter Alpuri Shangla, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Saturday.

Their remains were recovered a day earlier from a mass grave in Toor Chapper, a remote area of K-P’s Darra Adam Khel town, the police earlier said.

At least 34 coalminers had gone missing in K-P’s Shangla district in September 2011 after at least two dozen militants raided the base camp of labourers who mostly hailed from Swat, Kohistan and Shangla areas of Malakand Division.

Read more: Remains of ‘16 abducted coalminers’ found in K-P mass grave

Shangla Mine Workers Association (SAMWA), which is an organisation working for miners' rights contributed to rescuing activities. According to SAMWA President Abid Yar Khan, the provincial government gave them support by involving the rescue 1122 team and other required facilitation.

The funeral was attended by relatives of the deceased, locals of the area and the provincial Minister Shokat Yousafzai, Minister for Mines Arif Ahmad Zai and PML -N Provincial President Ameer Muqam also attended the prayers.

Later, the bodies of coal miners were dispatched in ambulances to their villages in different parts of the district.