CHITRAL: Bandits from across the Afghan border continued their looting spree in the Kalash valley for the second day on Saturday and herded away about 2,500 goats from a pasture in Birir.

According to an official in the Chitral district police control room, the goats owned by the Kalash community were grazing in the high-altitude pasture in the Birir valley along the border.

A Levies official said the Kalash shepherds did not resist when the looters arrived and started herding the goats towards the border.

On Friday, shepherds in a pasture in the adjoining Bumburate valley had resisted the robbers and exchanged gunfire but the attackers captured two of them and killed them on the border.

Ibrahim Khan, a resident of Birir, told Dawn that more than 40 armed Afghan bandits appeared in the pasture and started assembling the goats from three places, but the shepherds did not resist because they were unarmed.

He said that the bandits crossed into Afghanistan’s Nuristan area after walking for about two hours along with the animals.

People of the Kalash community live in the contiguous but segregated valleys of Bumburate, Birir and Rumbur in south Chitral and all of them border Nuristan.

The incidents of loot and plunder have spread fear among the residents of the valleys.

The deputy commissioner and the district police chief, who were in Shandur where a festival is being held, were not available for comments. 

Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2016