Mahsud tribes boycott survey, send team back in South Waziristan

WANA: The Mahsud tribes in Malik Mela in Ladha tehsil of South Waziristan tribal district on Tuesday boycotted the survey for the damages and losses caused by the militancy and subsequent military operations and returned the tehsildar along with the survey team.

The residents of Malik Mela did not allow tehsildar and his team to conduct a survey in the area and sent back the team. Later, the residents along with elders staged a sit-in against the government and announced to proceed to the office of deputy commissioner in Tank in a caravan to register their protest with the officials concerned.

The elders of protesting Mahsud tribes, including Malik Said Alam Mahsud, Malik Maula Jan Mahsud, Malik Muhammad Din and others said that they would not accept the survey being conducted to assess the damages in the yester years’ militancy and military operations unless and until the government announced a reasonable compensation for the losses.

They said that the survey team had announced that the whole joint family abode would be counted as one house and the compensation would be given for the same only. “Our homes are like forts and four to eight families live together in a single home. The survey team only count the entire fort-like house a single abode for which a meagre compensation is being given,” an elder complained, adding that they would not accept such a sham survey to deceive the affected people.

They said that Rs0.4 million compensation was a peanut and even they cannot build a single bathroom with it. They appealed to Prime Minister Imran Khan, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Chief Minister Mahmood Khan to take notice of the plights of Malik Mela residents and compensate them properly for their losses.