SWABI: Over two decades old dispute claiming five lives at Karnal Sher Khan Kallay here has been resolved with the efforts of local jirga and dispute resolution council representatives.

The jirga members said on Sunday that the dispute had started between the families of Qamar Zaman and Anwar Ali on one side and Shah Said and Ali Shah on the other with killing of a person over a trivial issue.

The 22-year-long enmity had claimed lives of total five people from both sides at different times and there was a danger of more killings.

The jirga members, led by Haji Mumtaz Khan and Khalid Akhtar, held their meetings and negotiations with elders of the two families for several months to resolve the dispute.

Both the groups had put forward their demands to the jirga members who later held their own meetings to narrow down the differences and reduce the demands.

Khalid Akhtar said that at last they succeeded in convincing the two sides that only forgiving each other could end their animosity to protect the future of their younger generation as ongoing rivalries could result in more loss of lives.

Haji Mumtaz said that their efforts finally bore fruit and the two sides forgave each other by taking oath on the Holy Quran that they would no longer consider each other enemies and would live like brothers.

Shahi Rawan, another jirga member, said that jirga still had a great importance in Pakhtun society and it could help in ending serious differences among rival families.

POWER SUSPENSION: The entire Topi tehsil plunged into darkness on Saturday night as power supply remained suspended for seven hours.

The consumers said that power supply breakdown continued from midnight till morning.

Hassan Khan, a resident, alleged that whenever a fault occurred in power transmission line the Pesco staff waited till morning to rectify it.

When contacted, Pesco officials said that a major fault had occurred in the transmission line due to which the supply remained suspended for several hours to Topi city and its suburbs at night.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2019