Six young shepherds go missing from Mohmand

Local officials say the boys may have been kidnapped by militants.

PESHAWAR: Six teenage shepherds went missing on Monday while they grazed their cattle in the Mohmand Agency, along the Pak-Afghan border.

Although their whereabouts remain “unclear”, authorities believe they might have been kidnapped by militants and taken across the border.

The shepherds went missing from Haleemzai tehsil area of Mohmand Agency, Khalid Khan, a senior official of the agency’s political administration, told The Express Tribune.

“They are all in their teens and had taken their cattle around Peepal Banda located on the bank of the Kabul River on Sunday. Nothing has been heard about them since then,” he said.

The boys were identified as Jabbar, Nizam, Zeeshan, Irshad, Hidayat and Nasrullah. They all hail from the Barokhel and Sultankhel areas of Haleemzai.

The political administration of the agency called a jirga of the Hamza Khel tribe and asked them for assistance in retrieving the boys. “We think they might have been taken by militants and since they have connections across the border also, we have asked the tribe for help,” Khalid said.

Meanwhile, residents who spoke to The Express Tribune said that it was not clear whether a demand for ransom had been made or if anyone had contacted the boys’ families. “We have searched for them everywhere but there seems to be no clue. Until someone contacts us, we cannot say if the boys have been kidnapped,” a member of the tribe said.

Tribes that inhabit the area along the porous border have relatives on both sides.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2012.