LANDI KOTAL, Aug 27: Heavily-armed tribesmen of Khyber Agency occupied the hilltops overlooking the Peshawar valley on Sunday night and vowed to resist the installation of meters at their houses by the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda).

The electricity supply remained suspended to certain parts of the agency on the second consecutive day on Monday.

The power supply was disconnected from the Jamrud grid station to Zakhakhel and Ali Masjid feeders on Sunday after the tribesmen had refused to install meters at their residences.

The political administration has deployed paramilitary troops on the hilltops and along the roads in the Landi Kotal subdivision to avert any untoward incident. Both the tribesmen and the paramilitary forces are patrolling the Peshawar-Landi Kotal Highway and other roads in the agency.

A tribal jirga, attended by the elders of Zakhakhel, Shinwari, Shalmani and Malagori tribes, decided that if the electricity supply was not restored within 24 hours, they would meet again to decide the future course of action during which, they indicated, they would target the government and Wapda installations, block roads and dynamite electricity poles.

Speaking at the jirga, Malik Darya Zakhakhel said the tribesmen believed in resolving the issue through negotiations. Other speakers termed the power suspension a tactic used by the government to effect a split among the tribes over the  meters’ installation issue in the agency.

They said that as tension prevailed along the country’s western and eastern borders and the government was upbeat about the Fata reforms, the issue might worsen the situation in the tribal territory. They warned that the issue would also sabotage the elections.

An official source, when asked, said the issue should have been tackled by Wapda itself without involving the local administration in it. No responsible officials of Wapda were present in the entire Landi Kotal subdivision to look to the outcome of the power disconnection, he added.