SUKKUR, July 23 Sawand and Sabzoi clans in Kandhkot who have killed more than 65 people between them over a period of five years have at last shown willingness to settle the bloody dispute, which had started over a piece of land.

The chiefs of both the clans, Sardar Tegho Khan Teghani, chief of Sabzois, and Sardar Jehangir Khan Kakepoto, chief of Sawands, met at the residence of Tegho Khan in Shikarpur on Friday to hammer out terms of the planned settlement.

Tegho Khan told Dawn that the meeting had fixed July 29 for convening a reconciliation meeting between the two clans. Former provincial minister Mir Manzoor Panhwar and Dr. Mohammad Ibrahim Jatoi would act as Ameens, he said.

Jehangir Khan said that they had discussed ways and means to bring peace to Kandhkot area and “we want to bring lasting peace to the area so that people can carry on with their routine life without any fear”.

According to information gathered from the area, the dispute between the two clans started five years ago over a piece of land in the katcha (riverine) area of Kandhkot.

The piece of land was in possession of Sawand clansmen who claimed to have cultivated it land for three consecutive years before Sabzois claimed ownership right over the land.

Sawands' refusal to vacate the land triggered the tribal war. First attempt to settle the dispute was made by a jirga in Kandhkot two years ago in which the two clans vowed to end the bloodshed.

But the reconciliation proved short lived. Soon after the jirga, a teenaged Sawand boy was shot dead in Ghotki, who according to his relatives, was killed by Sabzoi clansmen. The murder vaporised the settlement reached at the jirga and the two clans once again plunged into bloodletting.

Tribal feuds among various clans have paralysed life in Kandhkot, Kashmore and many other parts of upper Sindh like Shikarpur and Ghotki districts. Schools stop functioning and nobody can tend to lands in troubled areas. As a result the rural economy starts crumbling.

Women and children also face the wrath of rivals during these bloody clashes and killed without any discrimination.

In Garhi Tegho, Ghouspur, Buxapur, Tangwani and a number of other areas of Kandhkot-Kashmore district, raging feuds between Teghani and Ogahi, Jakhrani and Bhayo, Kandrani and Jakhrani and Chachar and Sabzoi tribes, besides Sawand-Sabzoi dispute, which had, with a few exceptions, sparked over minor issues have claimed lives of hundreds of innocent people.