February 14, 2008	Thursday	Safar 06, 1429

AKOHAT, Feb13: Tribal elders belonging to the Frontier Region of Kohat who had sought one week for handing over militants and criminals hiding in Darra Adamkhel have refused to meet Wednesday’s deadline.

“We cannot meet the deadline because the administration has not given us a list of wanted men and we fear that if we produce some criminals the government will not accept them as real criminals. Therefore, the official list must be provided to us,” a tribal elder told Dawn.

He said the government decision to punish tribesmen for activities of militants, who had remained the blue-eyed of agencies in the past, was unjust and illegal.

The government, he claimed, knew every militant and criminal by face and before the military operation, despite repeated appeals, it had failed to take them to task when they were blowing up CD markets, girls’ schools and trucks, sending threatening letters to elders and parliamentarians and killing passengers. The authorities, he said, had been keeping a mum over activities of militants in the areas for over four years, even after the kidnapping of 11 army personnel, including two captains, two months ago. Three of the army men were later released.

The tribal elder deplored that the administration preferred direct talks with militants and governor’s representatives met them regularly in Kohat and Darra Adamkhel. At that time, he said, Maliks were bypassed and now they were being held responsible which was unfair.

A 150-member jirga of six major tribes of the Frontier Region of Kohat had been asked by political agent Kamran Zeb last Wednesday to hand over militants and criminals and ensure security of the Indus Highway and the Kohat Tunnel, otherwise the government would take action against them under the collective responsibility clause of the Frontier Crimes Regulations.

At the meeting held at the circuit house and also attended by other officials of the administration, the tribesmen had been given only a few hours to inform the administration about their strategy.

However, the jirga members after discussing the matter asked the administration to give them a list of wanted militants and criminals so that they could produce them next week. But the authorities failed to provide them the list.