Akakhel elders demand either vacation of lands or compensation

BARA: Elders of Akakhel tribe from the Bara subdivision of Khyber tribal district have alleged that a former political agent had occupied their ancestral lands for construction of Shahid Afridi Sports Complex and demanded the governor to either compensate the affectees or retrieve the lands.

Talking to The News, Sartaj Khan, Muhammad Shafique Afridi, Mena Gul, Maaz Khan and Taj Muhammad along with other elders of Akakhel tribe said that they had been in tussle with non-Afridi tribe of Sheikhan village over disputed lands measuring 240 kanals for about 50 years, and the issue was resolved in 2007.

They said that the land had been handed over to the tribe and they considered the land to be used for commercial purposes to give opportunities of employment to locals.

The elders added that the security forces launched military operations against banned militant organisations and they had to vacate their houses and migrated to the Jalozai Camp in 2014.

“When peace was restored, we returned to our native lands but there we came to know that the then political agent of Khyber had grabbed the land. We requested the PA to leave the land and offered him alternate lands free of cost for the stadium, but he refused,” Sartaj Khan said.

He said that people of the tribe had taken up the issue with military and then under its supervision, a jirga was formed for compensation to the affectees in head of the land.

During the jirga, an agreement was signed in the presence of assistant political agent of Bara and notables including Malik Zahir Shah, Malik Warish Khan, Sohail Afridi, Gul Muran, tehsildar Khalid and others.

The jirga agreement, he said, bound the APA to give Rs12 millions to the tribe within six months. However, he lamented that instead of abiding by the agreement, the APA insulted the elders when they demanded the money.

He said that the APA neither provided them copies and of the agreement, nor the amount.

Another tribal elder, Shafique Afridi, told this scribe that the government had pledged to pay per 4 kanal Rs2,00,0000 or providing 200 jobs but neither money was paid, nor jobs yet.

He said that there were reports that the local administration had decided to pay the compensation money to maliks and some alleged land grabbers, which he termed an injustice.

Shafique said the land in question was the shared property of 10,000 families of Akakhel tribe and they should be paid the money to compensate them for their loss.

However, the elders threatened to forcibly stop the ongoing development work on the sports complex and launch a protest campaign if the real owners were deprived of their right and money was paid to maliks and land grabbers.

When this correspondent met Bara Assistant Commissioner Asmatullah Khan Wazir, he said that the issue of Shahid Afridi Sports Complex had been resolved two weeks ago. He said the government had paid Rs120 million to the landowners 15 days ago.