PESHAWAR, Sept 21: A fact-finding commission of the Peshawar High Court Bar Association has reported displacement of thousands of tribal people and deaths of innocent civilians during the ongoing military operation in South Waziristan.

The three-member commission headed by PHCBA secretary-general Wali Khan Afridi alleged abuse of fundamental rights in the region. It said markets were demolished in various areas and economic sanctions had been hitting common people hard.

The commission presented its report before a joint meeting of the PHCBA and the Peshawar District Bar Association on Tuesday. The meeting presided over by association's former's president Ziaur Rehman Khan condemned bombardments in the region and demanded an immediate withdrawal of troops from the area.

They said that President Pervez Musharraf had gone to the United States to give 'progress report' to President George Bush. They asked the government to set up camps for the displaced people and pay compensation to them.

The commission members said that they had not been allowed to enter the tribal agency and were stopped at Jandola. They said they had interviewed lawyers, journalists, detained persons, the MNA Maulana Merajuddin as well as displaced families concentrated at Tank, the district adjoining the South Waziristan Agency.

Mr Afridi said hundreds of people had sold out their cattle and moved to Tank, Dera Ismael Khan and even to Punjab and Sindh. He added that a large number of other displaced people had taken refugee in an abandoned Afghan refugee camp at Dabara.

Quoting witnesses, he said reports about bombardment of a so-called training camp of militants at Dhele Khora Karama area on Sept 9 was part of a 'dis information campaign'. In fact, he pointed out, 52 innocent persons were killed in the bombing. He said the local people had released a list of people killed and none of them was a foreigner.

He said the forces opened fire after a bomb had gone off accidentally and added that the firing had resulted in the killing of eight civilians. Four other civilians were killed in Makeen area due to shelling on the residence of Haji Sala Khan.

Mr Afridi gave names of various children and women who were killed during the operation. He said all the markets in Makeen were demolished and the bombing had also affected health facilities and mosques.

In Ladha tehsil, he said, many bodies were in possession of armymen but the bereaved relatives could not approach them for fear that they would be arrested. Former MNA Abdul Lateef Afridi, Barrister Bacchaa, Qaiser Rasheed, Ghulam Nabi, Muhammad Khursheed, Kareem Mehsud and Pir Bukhsh Mehtab severely condemned the operation.

Mr Rasheed claimed that former Corps Commander Ali Jan Orakzai had declined to launch operation and he was replaced. "The corpses of innocent civilians are scattered in forests and nobody can dare go there so that a proper burial can be carried out."

Mr Afridi pointed out that the bombing had ruined crops in the area. The displacement of families, he said, was the second largest in the region after the Afghan war. He said the fighting had reached the areas of Mehsuds and warned that the effect of the operation would be disastrous for the country.