LANDI KOTAL (Khyber Agency), Dec 9: Activists of Lashkar-i-Islam on Sunday publicly executed an alleged outlaw in Bara.
The decision to execute Riaz Khan had been taken by the group’s ‘shura’ in consultation with local elders.
The ‘death sentence’ was carried out in Nala-Malikdin Khel with hundreds of people gathered there to watch.
Local people said that Riaz Khan was brought blind-folded to the execution ground with his hands tied behind his back. The Lashkar executioners fired a volley of Kalashnikovs. The body was handed over to relatives, who also attended the execution.
Haji Misri Khan, a member of the Lashkar shura, told Dawn on phone from Bara that the death sentence had been given after a “thorough investigation into charges of murder, kidnapping and other heinous crimes against the man”. Riaz Khan, he claimed, had confessed to “all crimes he had committed over 10 to 15 years”, he claimed. He was punished in accordance with the rules of Sharia and tribal traditions.
He said that his group would not tolerate any criminal in the Khyber Agency.
He said that the local administration had “not been informed … about the public execution”.
Riaz Khan and his eight accomplices, who come from Shabqadar, were detained by Lashkar activists in Bara two weeks ago.
Bara political administration officials said that Riaz and his associates were wanted by police in Peshawar, Charsadda and Shabqadar in a number of criminal cases and he had been hiding in the agency for about a decade.
Lashkar sources said that some influential people of Charsadda and Shabqadar had approached their Amir Mangal Bagh to free the man and had offered him a large sum of money. The Shabqadar police had also “insisted” that the Lashkar hand over Riaz to them, they said.
Haji Misri Khan told Dawn that they were verifying the charges against the eight associates of Riaz and if they were found guilty they too would be executed.This was the third incident of public execution carried out by Lashkar-i-Islam over the past year. Its activists had previously executed six people, including two women, in Akkakhel and Sipah areas for “having committed adultery”.
