Kurram road reopened after three weeks

District administration of Kurram tribal district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has finally reopened the main Peshawar-Parachinar Highway.

All the entry roads were closed down by the security forces and district administration following the October 12 attack which left 15 people dead in the troubled tribal district.

Official sources told The Express Tribune that the main Peshawar-Parachinar highway, which had been closed for the past several weeks, has been temporarily opened.

On Saturday 73 Brigade Commander, DC Kurram, Commandant Kurram Militia and district police officer decided to open the main highway for a specific period of time at a Jirga held with the Sunni leaders in DC compound of Sadda, Kurram.

Official said that highway has been reopened for general traffic from 11 am to 2 pm. Locals, however, have been directed to make large convoys for travelling instead of traveling individually.

The law-and-order situation in the district has been tense for the past several weeks, but authorities said that normalcy is slowly returning. It should be noted that during this road closure, the situation in the area remained very difficult for the general public as apart from transportation, schools, colleges and markets had been and the hospitals faced shortage of medicines, due to which, many patients lost their lives.

"Locals faced a severe shortage of food, medicines and many patients could not be transported to Peshawar in time as a result at five people died awaiting treatment," said a local elder.

Kurram is one of the most troubled districts of the province due to sectarian tension and frequent land disputes as well as presence of terrorism.

Land disputes between clans rapidly develop into sectarian clashes in the district without inviting any attention from the quarters concerned.