May 6, 2003	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 3, 1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

BAJAUR, May 5: Afghan poppy growers have held about 40 workers belonging to the Bajaur tribal agency over a dispute on wages for harvesting poppy in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province and handed them over to the security agencies, sources told Dawn here on Sunday.

A large number of unemployed and unskilled tribesmen from Bajaur Agency had gone to Afghanistan to harvest a bumper poppy crop on lucrative daily wages in the eastern parts of Kunar province, bordering the agency.

The workers were offered Rs300 a day, besides lodgings, by the Afghan farmers, who are preparing for a bumper yield of poppy grown in the mountainous belt of Kunar province, the sources said.

According to reports reaching from Kunar province capital Assadabad, the Afghan farmers held about 40 workers over a dispute on non-payment of wages in Neglam, Asmar, Barkandai, Paich Darra and some other districts of Kunar and handed them over to the government agencies.

At present, the workers are in the custody of security agencies and the farmers have refused to pay them for their work, the sources said.

In Khaar, the Bajaur Agency headquarters, tribal elders and social and political circles have expressed anger over the arrest of the workers and demanded of the Afghan government to secure their release and also pay them their due wages.

The tribal elders also demanded of Pakistan government to play its role in the release of the workers.