August 08, 2008	Friday	Sha’aban 5, 1429

MANSEHRA, Aug 7: An octogenarian man was shot dead in public on the orders of a local jirga that found him ‘guilty’ of kidnapping a girl in the Kala Dhaka tribal area, sources told Dawn here on Thursday.

Ramoos Khan, 80, had allegedly kidnapped the daughter of Adil Mohammad two weeks earlier and reportedly sold her in the Allai area of Batagram district.

The girl’s family approached the Tilli Sydain jirga, when the accused returned to the area. The jirga found the elderly man ‘guilty’ of kidnapping and selling the girl and ordered the execution.

Zargul Khan, a former MPA from Kala Dhaka, when contacted, told this correspondent that accused Ramoos Khan was shot dead in the presence of locals on the orders of the jirga after he ‘confessed’ to having committed the crime.

In response to a question, the former lawmaker said that according to the centuries-old local traditions, a man found guilty of even teasing a woman was not pardoned. Similar punishments had also been carried out in the past, he claimed. — Nisar Ahmad Khan