Five killed in Kurram tribal clashes

Jirga secures 15-day ceasefire between rival tribes

PARACHINAR:

Five people lost their lives when a mortar shell hit a mountain bunker during clashes between two clans in Kurram tribal district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

Clashes between Para Chamkani and Turi tribesmen started four days ago when five Turi tribesmen were kidnapped by the rival Chamkani faction.

Chamkani accused Turi tribesmen of stopping trucks transporting their minerals and demanding extortion from them. They demanded free transit for trucks which was denied leading to the kidnapping of these five members of Turi faction.

All the five men were later released after a Jirga was formed by the district administration to negotiate the matter with both the factions. Clashes intensified, however, after the release of the hostages.

Both the rival clans were armed and also used mortar guns in the clashes. During the shelling, one of the mortar hit the mountain top bunker of Para Chamkani clan, killing all five people in the bunker. “It is not clear if the mortar is fired by the Turi tribesmen or the shell exploded when it was being fired from the bunker,” a local elder while talking to The Express Tribune said.

He regretted that the district administration had no writ in the area as tribesmen were armed and the infamous Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) was also no more.

FCR existed before the merger of tribal districts with K-P and provided the political agents with administrative and juridical powers to impose their writ with an iron hand.

“Deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners are helpless as police is no longer in their control and their judicial powers are also gone. Now tribesmen have no fear of the authorities like the past,” he said.

After the release of the five kidnapped men, authorities hoped that the situation would come back to normal but both the sides had already taken positions on mountain tops and continued targeting each other.

On Saturday, a Jirga led by Federal Minister Sajjid Turi and security forced finally succeeded in securing a ceasefire between the two warring faction for 15 days.