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India-Pakistan
Attack on shrine near Bara: Villagers blow up bridge, block road
2008-03-07
Emotions are running extremely high in Shaikhan village, bordering the Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency, with villagers on Thursday blowing up a bridge and blocked the main road. This follows an attack on a shrine by armed supporters of private tribal militia leader Mangal Bagh on Monday, which killed 12 and injured scores of others.

On Monday, several armed men affiliated with Lashkar-e-Islam (LI), a tribal militia operating in Khyber AgencyÂ’s Bara tehsil, stormed a shrine in the Shaikhan village, killing 12 villagers, including the majavars (custodians) of the shrine. The LI men attacked the shrine with rocket launchers, set it ablaze after taking away a grill that had enclosed two large graves. According to residents, they also tried to blow up the graves, but the explosives did not go off. Many other small graves in the shrine compound were damaged in the attack though.

On Thursday, angry villagers blew up a bridge and blocked Bara Road with tree trunks near the Bara Qadeem checkpost.

No shrines warning: A villager told Daily Times that the head of the LI, Mangal Bagh, had warned villagers on Wednesday on his illegal FM radio channel that his organisation would not tolerate shrines in the area. There are more than five shrines in the locality, he added.

“Which government should we obey, the one in Peshawar or the tribal militia leader from Bara?”
Farhad Ali, a resident of Shaikhan village, said the LI men also took jewellery and other precious items from villagers’ homes after the raid on the shrine. He asked, why does the LI not shut heroin and hashish centres in Bara instead of attacking our villages? In terms of the writ of state in the area, Ali asked also: “Which government should we obey, the one in Peshawar or the [one the] tribal militia leader from Bara [is trying to enforce]?”

Villagers said they were worried about further incursions by the militia. They said members of the dominant tribe of the area, the Khalil Mohmand tribe, would sit together on Friday at Sarband to decide the future course of action.

Tit-for-tat: Locals said they would not tolerate the militia leaderÂ’s shenanigans and would give a tit-for-tat response for the attack. They said they would continue their struggle till BaghÂ’s sway in the area ended.

Sarband Police Station officials told Daily Times the situation was under control in the area after MondayÂ’s attack. Police had registered a first information report (FIR) against Mangal Bagh and 500 hundred of his supporters on Tuesday under the anti-terrorism act, he added.
Any of them arrested? I thought not.
SSP Operations Syed Imtiaz Shah told Daily Times the security forces, including the police and the Frontier Constabulary (FC), had been deployed in the area to prevent any further incursions. He said the police had also written to the Khyber Agency political agent asking for the arrest of Mangal Bagh and his followers. He said it was the political administrationÂ’s responsibility to arrest Bagh as he was living in the tribal area [under their governance].
Posted by:Fred

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