Restoration of mobile phone network sought

 

 

Restoration of mobile phone network sought

 

Our correspondent
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 

 

PARACHINAR: Fata chapters of Awami National Party (ANP) and Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) have asked the government to restore the mobilephone network in Kurram Agency immediately.

In a joint statement on Monday, tribal leader of MQM Muhammad Turi and ANP President Daulat Ali Khan said the mobile phone service had been suspended since last year due to which people were facing problems.

They said that the people working with the mobile companies had also been rendered jobless. They said that landline phone service was the only source of communication in the area but it remained out of order most of the time. Lauding the restoration of the mobile phone network in Dera Ismail Khan after two years, they demanded of the government to restore it in Kurram Agency also.

 

source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=42423&Cat=7&dt=4/19/2011

Elders meet today to salvage Kurram peace deal

Bureau Report | From the Newspaper

 

PESHAWAR: The interlocutors and guarantors of Kurram peace deal will meet in Islamabad on Tuesday to chalk out a strategy for recovery of 35 passengers, who were kidnapped from Thall-Parachinar Road last month.

They will discuss ways to salvage the peace agreement that collapsed only after month it was put into effect. "The stakeholders will sit together to find out solution to lingering issue of Kurram," Malik Waris Khan Afridi, former federal minister and head of the jirga that brokered peace agreement, told Dawn on Monday.

Well informed sources said that some outsiders, who were guarantors of the peace deal, were expected to attend the crucial talks to be held at an undisclosed place in the federal capital.

Mr Afridi also confirmed participation of main guarantors in the negotiations. The elders of rival tribes would also take part in the talks. He said that recovery of the 35 kidnapped people and compensation package worth Rs1 billion for the affected families of Kurram were on the agenda of the jirga.

The jirga will discuss breach of peace deal and kidnapping on Thal-Parachinaar Road, which was reopened in February this year after a four-year closure. Militants had attacked three vehicles heading from Peshawar to Parachinar, the headquarters of Kurram, in Baggun on March 26.

Three people were killed and two others got injuries while 35 passengers were kidnapped in the incident. The whereabouts of kidnapped people is still unknown and no group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

According to sources a local militant group is believed to have hand in the kidnapping as it wants to force government for accepting its demands, including release of its members. However, Mr Afridi said that he didn`t know about the kidnappers and their motives.

Sajid Hussain Turi, a parliamentarian from Kurram, said that recovery of the kidnapped persons was on the top of jirga`s agenda. He said that elders and parliamentarians had worked hard to implement the agreement, signed in October 2008 for restoration of peace in the area, in letter and spirit but a series of attacks on vehicles plying on Thall-Parachinar Road had jeopardised the accord.

He said that 12 persons were killed in an attack on a passenger coach near Mamo Khwar. "The government is guarantor of the peace deal but it has failed to ensure safety of people of Kurram. Security forces have not supported efforts of the elders," he said.

 

SOURCE:  http://www.dawn.com/2011/04/19/elders-meet-today-to-salvage-kurram-peace-deal.html

 

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Kidnapped passengers: Kurram jirga to take up issue with governor

Kidnapped passengers: Kurram jirga to take up issue with governor

 

ISLAMABAD, April 19: Lawmakers and elders of Kurram Agency unanimously decided here on Tuesday to take up the issue of 35 passengers kidnapped from Thall-Parachinar Road with the KP governor besides pressing the security forces for ensuring safety on the route.

MNA from Kurram Agency Sajid Hussain Turi told Dawn that this was for the first time that the two major tribes in the volatile Kurram Agency — Turi and Mengal — had passed on the buck to the government regarding safety of their tribesmen on Thall-Parachinar Road and many other issues as in the past, the two tribes were holding each other responsible for any untoward incident in the tribal area.

"The Thall-Parachinar Road was re-opened with the mutual efforts of tribal elders. Now the government and security forces were wholly responsible for safeguarding the road," the MNA said.

About Tuesday`s jirga, the lawmaker said that about 30 tribal elders including MNA Munir Orakzai collectively decided to involve the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government for peace in Kurram Agency.

Mr Turi regretted that the government had completely ignored the safety of passengers traveling on the route adding that the recovery of the 35 missing commuters was the duty of law enforcement agencies.

He said that both Mengal and Turi tribes would support military operation against the militant group fuelling sectarian clashes in the tribal agency. "If the government keeps mum over the suffering of the people, then we have other options to force the government to take practical step for the peace in Parachinar," he said.

Mansab Ali, a tribal elder, told Dawn that a third force which had no affiliation with any of the two tribes was destroying peace in the tribal agency, adding that both the federal and provincial governments had completely ignored their responsibility to maintain law and order in the area.

Munir Orakzai said that KP Governor Barrister Masud Kausar would be requested to take up the issue of kidnapped passengers with the security forces.

 

source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/04/20/kidnapped-passengers-kurram-jirga-to-take-up-issue-with-governor.html

 
Three killed, one injured in Karachi gun attack

DAWN.COM

 

KARACHI: Three people were killed and one was injured when unknown gunmen attacked them in Karachi on Wednesday.

The victims' car was fired upon by the attackers in the vicinity of Aladdin water park on Rashid Minhas Road.

Three men, Naseem Sharif, Bisharat and Shahsawar, were killed on the spot; while their fourth companion, Tahir, was rushed to the hospital after receiving bullet wounds.

"Tahir, who was injured, belongs to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)," a police official told DawnNews.

Meanwhile, a relative of the deceased told DawnNews that Shahsawar and Bisharat were both involved in vegetable sales and were residents of Gulshan-e-Iqbal, block 10. They were originally from Kohat (Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa) and Parachinar (Fata) respectively.

 

source:http://www.dawn.com/2011/04/20/three-killed-one-injured-in-karachi-gun-attack.html