June 20, 2006	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 23, 1427

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KOHAT, June 19: A special team formed to probe the murder of two woman teachers and two children in Orakzai Agency has traced and arrested four people with the help of sniffer dogs, officials said on Monday.

Twelve tribesmen have also been arrested under the collective responsibility clause of the Frontier Crimes Regulations to put pressure on the accused tribe for handing over the mastermind of the killings.

Ume Salma, her 10-year-old daughter, Laila, minor son, Syed Anosh Haider, and her colleague, Saida Bibi, had been killed in their school on Friday.

A grand jirga of the Aakhel tribe, on whose land the murders were committed, have also started proceedings in Ghiljo, headquarters of the Orakzai Agency, to solve the case. The jirga will suggest punishment for the culprits.

The government side is being represented by assistant political agent of Upper Orakzai Agency Abdul Kamal Khattak and prominent among those representing the accused tribe are Haji Fazal Mohammad, Haji Jabbar, Malik Noor Akhtar, Malik Zamin Shah and Malik Gulzada.

The administration brought trained dogs to find out the murderers. The dogs were first taken to the school building where the teachers and the children had been killed. The dogs led the investigating team to a house owned by Mullah Ayub.

Mullah Ayub, his brother, Rauf, and his two nephews were taken into custody.

Earlier, the authorities arrested the owner of the school building.

Under the FCR, the owner of the building will get punishment even if he is not involved in the case as he is responsible for the security of the staff of the school for which he is paid monthly rent and employed as a watchman

Meanwhile, clerics in the tribal Orakzai Agency have taken strong exception to investigations and punishment awarded to people in the light of identifications made through sniffer dogs and termed it un-Islamic.

In their regular sermons in mosques, they said the government and some people had chosen the way of trial and punishment through dogs which was against the centuries-old local jirga system.

Sniffer dogs were first used in the region to solve murder cases in 2003 in Orakzai Agency.