April 10, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 21, 1428

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PESHAWAR, April 9: Various tribal leaders of Parachinar have separately called for a judicial inquiry into the ongoing sectarian clashes in different areas of the Kurram Agency.

Addressing separate press conferences at the Peshawar Press Club on Monday, the Bangash, Toori and Orakzai elders, leaders of the Ahl-i-Sunnah Wal-Jamaat, Parachinar, and Anjuman Farooqia called for swift government action against people involved in killings and ransacking of public and private property in the agency.

Rafique Hussain, general secretary of the Bangash, Toori and Orakzai Social Welfare Organisation, said the local tribal administration had failed to control the worst kind of lawlessness in the agency. He said that more than 100 people had been killed and about 300 were injured in the clashes.

He said the ‘miscreants’ had torched over 70 shops and houses in the central part of the district. He said the political administration had besieged Parachinar city after imposing curfew, while people in the surrounding areas targeted each other’s property.

He termed the rioting pre-meditated and accused the government of having supplied fake medicines to the local hospital. He said that government helicopters had targeted their houses in Parachinar.

Holding the NWFP governor directly responsible for the deteriorating situation, he urged the government to stop extremists’ infiltration into Lower Kurram from the Waziristan areas, fearing that this might lead to opening up of a new front and triggering fresh sectarian clashes.

At a separate press conference, Hidayat Hussain, a retired civil servant, flanked by other retired government officials and technocrats, held the ban on religious outfits responsible for fresh clashes in the agency, where Shia and Sunni people had been living peacefully for decades.

Terming the political administration’s handling of the situation in the tribal agency inept, he said that it had badly failed to maintain the rule of law.

The Ahl-i-Sunnah Wal-Jamaat leaders also called for setting up a judicial inquiry commission.

Mastgul alias ‘Major’ Mastgul, MPA Mohammad Ibrahim Qasmi and others called upon the government to arrest the real culprits behind the distribution of hate material, mass murder and destruction of private and public property.

They accused the government of inaction and said that it had not moved against extremists involved in the bloodshed all over the tribal agency.

Identifying perpetrators of violence as being the same elements who were involved in sabotage activity in Balochistan and Waziristan, they said that people who were openly known as agents of foreign countries were behind the clashes.

They denied the involvement of Taliban in the conflict and alleged that ‘American agents’ were active in Parachinar. They also accused that Afghan president Hamid Karzai of telling his ‘secret agents’ to foment violence in tribal areas.

They called for an immediate end to the clashes and arrest of criminals involved in mass murdering innocent people.

They said they had time and again asked the government to ban hate material, but their suggestion had not been taken seriously, adding that if the distribution of such material was not controlled, the clashes might spread to other areas.

Addressing a separate news conference, Eid Gul Mengal, general secretary of the Anjuman Farooqia of Kurram agency demanded of the federal government to probe into the actions of the Levy Force and the Muharars and said that their partisan role had made the situation worse.