PESHAWAR, Dec 26: Inadequate security arrangements had led to the incident in the Kurram Agency which claimed 18 lives, including those of some law enforcement agencies’personnel and Arab detainees. Five suspects, who had escaped at the time, were still at large, according to an official report
It has been reliably learnt that the ugly incident which took place on Dec 19 at Arawali,lower Kurram Agency, was the result of a non-professional way of shifting 156 Arab detainees and some other suspects from the Parachinar jail to Kohat.
Official sources told Dawn that security arrangements at the time of shifting the detainees were made haphazardly and a contingent of Kurram Levy , comprising 200 personnel, was not allowed to escort them.
The sources said that, despite sufficient accommodation in the jail, some officials were in a hurry to shift the detainees to Kohat jail in broad daylight, without taking appropriate security measures.
The detained Arabs were neither frisled before their departure nor were they handcuffed in the buses, as was the usual procedure, disclosed a senior official of the Kurram Levy.
Levy guards told this scribe that they had recovered an AK-47 rifle, TT pistol rounds, knives, cassettes and foreign currency from some of the Arabs in tehsil Ali Zai, where they were detained after the ncident. Some tribesmen, who had captured four Arab fugitives on the spot, had also seized ammunition from them.
A source in Parachinar jail said that a senior official of the agency administration and a major in the Frontier Corps who was leading the convoy, had asked the jail authorities not to search the detainees before their departure.
Well-placed sources said that five masked suspects had also been brought to the Parachinar jail from Para Chamkani, a remote area in the east of the agency headquarters. The jail authorities were strictly ordered not to remove their masks,the sources added.
Kurram Levy officials said that, for shifting an ordinary prisoner from one tribal area to another place, political authorities deputed two Levy personnel or Khasadars to escort him. But, while shifting 156 battle-hardened fighters of Al-Qaeda from Parachinar to Kohat, the authorities had deputed only 21 Levy guards to escort them.