KHYBER: Local leaders of various mainstream political parties are engaged in close consultations to revitalise the otherwise dormant Landi Kotal Siyasi Ittehad (LSI) to resolve local disputes and effectively raise its voice for securing legitimate rights of residents of the area.

Formed almost a decade ago with active support of all major political parties, the alliance had in the past effectively tackled some thorny issues pertaining to regional security, border trade with Afghanistan and local issues including excessive power loadshedding, water shortage and health and education problems.

LSI, however, could not sustain its vigour owing to waning interest by the representatives of partner political parties as they became less interested in even attending its regular meetings.

Murad Hussain, a leader of Jamaat-i-Islami and sitting president of LSI, told Dawn that he tried his best to take all partners of the alliance along but some of its former leaders lost interest in both local issues and organisational matters of LSI.

He, however, insisted that he was still more than interested to not only revive LSI but to reorganise it with a fresh and strong resolve to resolve local issues.

“We are now fortunate that there is no serious law and order issue in Landi Kotal, but we still have problems in health and education sectors which require our urgent attention,” he added.

He regretted that with LSI now ‘pushed’ to background, the vacuum was ‘occupied’ by localised welfare organisations that lacked capacity to handle thorny and complicated issues.

Mufti Ejaz Shinwari, a leader of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, argued that the revival of LSI was imperative as land disputes had taken an ugly shape owing to inefficiency of police to handle such issues.

He said that people in Landi Kotal were yet to understand legal procedure to contest their property-related cases in local courts while the absence of an organised revenue record further compounded the situation.

He said that most of the land disputes would be resolved through jirga system prior to merger of tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He said that extension of judicial system and Police Act to tribal districts so far failed to handle such issues.

“We need to put our heads together and seriously work for resolution of all these issues through reorganising LSI for which all local political leadership has to show sincerity and seriousness,” he said.

Shah Hussain Shinwari of Awami National Party acknowledged that local issues had multiplied in the recent past. “There is always a need for a political alliance to work as a pressure group and argue for resolution of local issues,” he added.

He suggested that all political parties should direct their local leaders to participate actively in the affairs of LSI. He said that some of the political parties lost their interest in the affairs of alliance when their tenure of the president slot ended.

He said that all stakeholders including influential tribal elders, civil society activists and other professional persons having sufficient knowledge of the local affairs should be made part of LSI.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2025