The death toll in Wednesday’s gun attack on vans in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Lower Kurram passenger has increased to 42 persons and over 30 other individuals were injured as disclosed by the deputy commissioner on Friday.
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Sectarian Violence
District police officer of Kurram, Javedullah Mehsud, when contacted by Dawn.com, also endorsed the losses saying that the killed were seven women and a nine year girl.
The attack that took place on Thursday had happened in Mandori Charkhel which has been a sensitive area in terms of sectarian conflict and agrarian relations.
DC Mehsud said yesterday the convoy, which included some 200 vehicles, was moving from Parachinar to Peshawar when it was attacked heavily. In another interview with AFP, he said that there were two attacks on two convoys of Shiite passengers.
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Rising Tensions
The DC informed that efforts were being made to save the lives of the injured as the bodies of those killed in the incident had been shifted to Parachinar.
“As soon as it becomes possible we will attempt to return things to normal and then a grand jirga will be convened,” he said it is impossible to open schools and markets since the attack.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack by any political or ethnic group.
Sources told Dawn that the attack, which occurred at around 1:20 pm, seemed to have been carried out in reprisal for an incident on Oct 12 that left 15 people dead of them were women and a child. The local officials opined that the situation might worsen, and there were tensions on the increase in the tribal region.
Survivor Accounts
One of the people targeted was Ajmeer Hussain who was admitted to a local hospital with the injuries.
“Suddenly, shooting began,” Hussain, 28, another victim being treated at a local hospital, said: “I began to read my prayers, I thought it was the end of me.”
I fell down at the feet of the two passengers sitting next to me. Both of them were shot with more than one bullet and could not survive the tragedy, he continued. “The shooting phase was said to have lasted about five minutes.”
One of the wounded, Jamshed Hussain, said to Reuters by telephone from a hospital bed that he had been traveling in the convoy of roughly 100 vehicles with police personnel.
He said the citizens who were in the convoy stopped and unleashed an attack on it attacking first the escort cars shooting at the vehicles from both sides.
“The occupants of the car did not know them but the presume that they were carrying rifles,” Hussain was quoted as saying.’
Global Condemnation
The attack was denounced by the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the President Asif Ali Zardari in addition to other political parties.
While addressing the media in a statement issued today, the US Mission spokesperson Jonathan Lalley noted that bullets killing dozens of innocent Pakistanis and critically wounding many more in Kurram are reprehensible.
Sectarian Strife
There has always been sectarian violence in Kurram district that borders Afghanistan, especially occasioned by the conflict of land ownership between sects.
A man mourns while leaning against the wall next to victims’ bodies killed in a gun attack on the passenger vans in Kurram district in a mosque in KP’s Parachinar early on Nov 22, 2024. — AFP
Earlier, government has formed a land commission to address on the issue in concerned. Although, it has been claimed that the commission has produced its report, however, the government has not made it available to the public on grounds of the issue being sensitive.
There are also question marks over the ban terrorists group Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) involvement which has recently been seen active in Lower Kurram and has caused a stir among the locals. However, security officials credited it to the continuing fighting over the piece of land, thus denying it any sectarian link.
The tribesman of Tori Bangash Jalal Bangash also urged the authorities to rescue stranded passengers and take actions to protect the injured people.
Bangash and Allama Tajammal Hussain has shown concern to this attack and added that the state institutions have failed to ensure safe transport links despite previous efforts at establishing peace such as the march by people of Parachinar to Islamabad.
The incident has taken place at a time when there has been a higher frequency of terrorist activities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa KP and Balochistan with first three weeks of November reported at least 55 security forces personnel martyred a local think tank.
Twelve security personnel were martyred while six terrorists has been gunned down in an attack on a checkpost in KP’s Bannu district on Tuesday.
The attacks aggravated after the TTP violated the tenuous truce which had been signed with the government in 2022 and pledged to continue its operations specifically targeting security forces.
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