Four people were killed and five others were injured on Saturday morning in a clash between two parties over a land dispute in the Cham Saidan area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Battagram district, police said.
The deceased included three members of a family — Shahzada, his son Ziaullah Shah and brother Muzzarib Shah — according to Abdul Nabi, public relations officer (PRO) for Battagram District Police Officer (DPO) Ayaz Khan.
The fourth person killed, Anwar Ali Shah, was from the rival group, PRO Nabi added.
Nabi added that the injured people were taken to the Battagram District Headquarters Hospital, from where those in a serious condition were shifted to Abbotabad’s Ayub Teaching Hospital Complex.
The official further said that a heavy police deployment had been arranged in the area following the incident.
Subsequently, a first information report (FIR), a copy of which is seen by Dawn.com, was registered at the Kuza Banda police station by Shahzada’s son Habibullah, naming 14 people from the rival group.
The FIR invoked sections 302 (qatl-i-amd or intentional murder), 324 (attempt to commit intentional murder), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon) and 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
Land disputes claimed at least 15 lives last month, out of which six took place in KP.
In early March, three brothers were among four killed and two others were injured when rival groups exchanged fire in Mardan’s Qari Abad Qasim Toru Meera area over a land scuffle.
Days later, a man and his son cultivating tobacco in their agricultural fields were gunned down in Mardan’s Suwaryaan area, while another son was wounded.
A similar dispute also took the lives of two brothers in Punjab’s Sahiwal district on March 26, with both rival groups being neighbours and belonging to the Jutt clan.
The next day, armed men opened indiscriminate fire at the makeshift house of a local farmer in the Sohbatpur district of Balochistan’s Nasirabad division over a land dispute, killing seven members of a family.
Yesterday, a man was shot dead and another wounded when two groups clashed with each other over a property dispute in Karachi’s Surjani Town.