LANDI KOTAL: An Afghan national was injured after khasadar force opened fire on a group trying to enter Pakistan without legal travel document on Monday night.

Officials said that a khasadar patrolling party signalled a group of at least 10 Afghans who were trying to clandestinely cross the border at midnight about a kilometre north of the main border crossing.

The khasadar party resorted to fire after the illegal Afghans tried to escape from near the Jumagai security checkpost.

Officials said that one Afghan identified as Jan Agha, a resident of Nangrahar province was injured when a bullet hit him in a leg while the remaining were arrested.

The injured was shifted to local hospital while the arrested Afghans were lodged in local lock-up for further investigations. Officials said that they had intensified border patrolling in order to curb entry of Afghans into Pakistan without legal travel documents.

Meanwhile five persons including a minor girl were injured in a road accident here on Tuesday.

Khasadar officials said that the accident occurred on Torkham by-pass road where a car collided with a pick-up due to overspeeding. The injured were shifted to Landi Kotal hospital, one of them was later referred to Peshawar due to his critical condition.

COMPENSATION: The Khyber Agency political administration distributed cheques among 202 Malakdin Khel families of Tirah whose houses were damaged during the valley occupation of militant groups.

This was the second phase of distributing compensation amount among the affected families out of the total 3,800 Bara and Tirah families who were shortlisted after the completion of a damages assessment survey conducted by the government.

A similar number of families from the same tribe had been given cheques by the administration some two weeks ago.

Officials said that the process would be completed till March next year during which an amount of Rs400,000 would be given to owners of fully damaged house while owners of partially damaged houses would receive Rs160,000 per house.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2016