Proscribed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on Sunday agreed to leave the Bar Qambarkhel area in Tirah after reaching a verbal understanding with local elders.
According to information gathered from credible sources in the restive valley, a group of Bar Qambarkhel elders met TTP local commanders on Sunday and reminded them of their written agreement of August 4, in which they had assured the elders that their houses would not be used for carrying out any attack on security forces or any other subversive activity.
Sources said that Bar Qambarkhel elders told the commanders of the proscribed outfit that locals were suffering owing to fighting between forces and terrorists, as some armed groups were still holed up in private houses while forcing residents of the area to vacate their houses.
They said that the exchange of fire between terrorists and security forces resulted in many casualties and injuries alongside damage to private properties, despite TTP’s assurance of August 5, when it had agreed to refrain from using the local population as a human shield against security forces.
A jirga of Bar Qambarkhel tribe on Saturday expressed its disapproval of the increasing armed activities and attacks of TTP from their soil and conveyed a strong message to the members of proscribed organisation about their repeated violation of the August 5 ‘peace agreement’.
Reliable sources in the valley told this scribe that TTP commanders on Sunday principally agreed to vacate and pull out of all their hideouts they had established inside private houses in Bar Qambarkhel area.
They said that local elders also succeeded in convincing security officials to lift the curfew imposed in their area for several days.
Security forces had also ordered residents in many localities to vacate their houses as a full-fledged military operation was in progress with several families shifting to safer places amidst heavy gun battle.
Local sources said that a woman died while three more persons were injured in at least three quadcopter strikes in Qambarkhel and Malakdin Khel areas on Sunday.
They said that the woman was killed when a private house was hit with a quadcopter strike while two persons were injured in another strike in Yakh Kamar locality.
They said that the identity of the two injured persons in Yakh Kamar locality could not be immediately established as the house targeted with quadcopter was empty at the time of the strike with its original inmates shifting to another safe location.
Police in Bara arrested two of their colleagues for their alleged involvement in kidnapping a local and also recovered the abducted person on Sunday.
DSP Swalzar Khan said that they raided a hotel in Bara after receiving information about the presence of abducted person Jamshed Khan and two of his captors Mir Gul and Tayyab Khan, both policemen.
He said that one of their accomplices, Haider, also a policeman, managed to escape before the raid. He said the three accused served at different police posts in Bara and were immediately suspended from their services.
Meanwhile, cricket players and their family members in Landi Kotal staged a protest against the recently held trials for Under-15, 17 and 19.
The protest demonstration was held at Bacha Khan Chowk where players burnt their cricket kits along with supporting documents against what they called nepotism and favouritism in the selection of players during the trails conducted by the district officials of Pakistan Cricket Board at Jamrud sports complex.
