WANA, Feb 13: Peshawar Corps Commander Lt-Gen Safdar Hussain has announced Rs200,000 compensation each for the two slain tribal journalists and assured that the perpetrators of the crime would be taken to task.

He was talking to a 29-member delegation of the Tribal Union of Journalists, which was led by its president, Sailab Mahsud, in Peshawar on Saturday.

The two journalists, Allah Noor Wazir and Amir Nawab Wazir, had been gunned down by unidentified assailants while they were returning from Srarogha where they had gone on Feb 7 with a group of journalists to cover the signing of the peace agreement between tribal militant Baitullah Mahsud and the security forces stationed in Wana. Another journalist, Anwar Shakir, had sustained injuries in the attack.

The corps commander said that no effort would be spared to capture the assailants. He assured journalists that they would be provided security cover during the performance of their professional duty.

He said that those tribal journalists who showed good performance and professionalism would be given awards and their names would also be recommended for national awards.

He said that no hurdles would be created in the way of the professional duty of journalists in the tribal areas. Lt-Gen Hussain said that Abdullah Mahsud was an anti-state element and no leniency would be shown to him.

He appreciated the cooperation extended by the tribal people to the security forces in the operation against foreign elements and their local collaborators in the South Waziristan agency. Tribesmen played a front-line role in this fight against terrorists in the tribal areas, he said.

The corps commander said that soon an army monitoring team would start functioning in the agency to monitor progress on development schemes initiated in the South Waziristan agency.