September 14, 2007	Friday	Ramazan 1, 1428

MANSEHRA, Sept 13: A dispute over who should receive compensation for earthquake damage claimed the life of a sharecropper in Battagram on Thursday. Ihsanullah Khan, a landowner and a resident of the Khyberabad in Battagram district, shot dead his tenant Mohammad Sharif and escaped. Battagram police are raiding various places to arrest the man after lodging an FIR.

Since the earthquake struck Mansehra and Battagram districts in 2005, landowners often dispute tenants’ claim to compensation for damage to housing units, amounting to Rs175,000 a house.

Landowners insist that the compensation should be paid to them as they own the property while sharecroppers say they should receive the money as it was their household items that were destroyed in the quake.

The dispute has so far claimed the lives of more than a dozen people from both sides in the two districts. The Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority has made the payment of compensation conditional to a ‘no-objection certificate’ by landowners.