HANGU, May 24: Two murder accused have been executed in public under a verdict given by a tribal jirga in the Dabori area of the Orakzai Agency. The jirga was constituted after members of a family of Rahmat Shah Banda village in Hangu district informed the agency elders that three tribesmen had kidnapped and later gunned down a taxi driver, Mohammad Ayub, near Doaba in the settled area on May 13.

The family had nominated three Orakzai tribesmen, Taj Mohammad, Ajmer and Mohammad Umar in the murder case.

The killers, they told the jirga, had booked the taxi for Thall and tried to hijack it. They killed the driver when he resisted them.

The jirga, after hearing the case, declared the three tribesmen guilty of the murder and asked their families to hand them over to the tribal elders.

Two of the accused were handed over to the tribal elders by their families but the third, Ajmer, did not turn up at the jirga.

Later, Mohammad Umar and Taj Mohammad were taken before firing squads which shot them to death.

An eye-witness, Khayal Mohammad, told this correspondent that the executions had been carried out in the presence of hundreds of tribesmen. He said that one of the killers had been executed on Monday and the other on Tuesday.

Ibrahim, uncle of the third accused, appeared before the jirga and said that his family would produce Ajmer before the jirga.

The jirga decided that the uncle would be executed if the family failed to produce Ajmer.

A political official, Rafiullah, confirmed the executions and said that the administration was preparing a report in this regard.