Bodies of 11 hostages, slain after their abduction last week, were recovered from two different sites of the Kurram tribal region in Pakistan. The bodies were recovered on Monday, claimed local media reports.
Unidentified assailants shot dead eight persons and threw their bodies in a deserted place near Faqir Khamsa village in lower Kurram area. All the slain persons were kidnapped by unidentified miscreants, during an ambush on a trucks convoy carrying foodstuff and medicines, heading for the northwestern town of Parachinar, last week.
All the victims hailed from Parachinar, the main town of Kurram Agency, with a majority Shiite population. Their bodies were being sent to their respective villages after their handover to Turi and Bangash tribal elders. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the killings.
Muhammad Azam Khan, the political agent of the Kurram Agency, told reporters in Parachinar, a town known to be the hotbed of sectarian violence, that culprits behind the gruesome act would be brought to justice.
''No one will be allowed to disrupt law and order and killers of the innocent people will be brought to book,'' he told reporters.
Meanwhile, the combating tribes in lower Kurram agreed to a ceasefire after persuasion by elders following the two-day clashes. Troops of Kurram militia were also reported to have taken control over the trenches dug by rival fighters to bring normalcy to the agency.
Taking strong exception to the brutal killings, the elders of Tori and Bangash tribes and their representative council 'Tori Bangash Supreme Council' demanded arrest of the perpetrators. Talking to reporters, elders of the council said that he responsibility of this bloodshed rests on the shoulders of the political administration and law enforcing agencies, which had claimed that only three persons were killed and eight others were alive and would be recovered safely.
They said the authorities deceived them by telling them lies to keep them tame while militants from Sadda were continuously attacking Balashkhel and Sangena villages with heavy weapons.
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