NWFP: Militants auction goods of Sikhs

[Naveed Yaseen]

KALAYA: The armed militants, who had occupied 10 shops of the Sikh community in Orakzai Agency, Thursday auctioned merchandise while the occupation of their 11 houses continued.

Sources said the affected Sikh families, comprising 63 persons, forever abandoned their native localities in the Qasimkhel and Ferozkhel area of the agency. The families of Kalyan Sigh and Dilbar Singh along with several others shifted to an undisclosed location, as they could not meet the militants’ demand for Rs130 million as protection amount.

In the latest move, the militants auctioned the goods they had retrieved from 10 shops of the Sikh merchants they had forcibly occupied. The amount was decided by the Sikhs in a jirga that was making efforts to free Kilyan Singh from the militants’ captivity when he was abducted 15 days ago.

However, he was freed after an instalment of Rs3.5 million was paid to the militants with the condition to pay the rest of the amount within the stipulated time. The two Sikhs said the payment of the rest of the amount was beyond their affordability and they had to say farewell to their native towns in the agency where they had lived for long.

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