June 29, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 24, 1429

TANK, June 28: A local leader of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), who is running a madressah here, has been accused of forcing girl students to train as suicide bombers following disappearance of two girls from the seminary, an official said.

DSP Liaquat Shah told Dawn that Bakhta Jan and Said Alam, residents of Payee village, had accused Maulana Samiullah Qureshi of sending their daughters from his madressah to North Waziristan to get training of suicide bombing. The cleric had been missing for the last three days and an FIR has been registered against him, he added.

Sources said that Nazmeen and Saeeda, aging 15 and 12 years respectively, went missing from the madressah of Maulana Qureshi, who was the district chairman of Ushr and Zakat Committee during the MMA government. The two families have accused the cleric of alluring the girls towards getting training of suicide bombing.

The sources said that the madressah girls were attracted to jehad because they were frequently shown jehadi videos and movies. Relatives said that the family members went to North Waziristan tribal region to retrieve the girls.

Meanwhile, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Maulvi Omar, while talking to this scribe, expressed ignorance of the disappearance of the girls from the madressah. However, he revealed that the Taliban were giving training to girls for suicide bombings but with the permission of their families.

“Taliban are giving training to girls and women for suicide bombings, and for this the consent of their parents is necessary,” he said.

Maulvi Omar criticised the raids of security forces, saying that the Taliban would resist use of force. The peace process would suffer a setback if the security forces did not stop the raids, he said.

TRIBESMAN KILLED: A tribesman was killed when he was hit by a mortar shell, reportedly fired from across the border, in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan on Friday.

According to sources, several mortar shells landed in the Pakistani territory after the Taliban clashed with Afghan army. One of the shells fell near one Niaz Mohammad and exploded killing him on the spot. On the occasion, Nato fighter jets reported violated Pakistan air space.— Correspondent