Taliban start leaving Lower Dir areas

About 75 per cent of the militants has left the area

Taliban began pulling out of different areas in Adenzai tehsil of Lower Dir on Friday in accordance with an agreement reached with a local jirga.People in Tazagram and Asbanr said about 75 per cent of the militants had left the area by the afternoon. Taliban who had occupied several buildings in Asbanr started vacating them on Thursday night. Only a few militants were seen on the Gulabad-Asbanr road which they used to patrol earlier.‘It is not clear where they have gone. They may have crossed over to Swat from where they had come here last month,’ said Mohammad Israr of Gulabad. Meanwhile, people continued to face hardship because there has been no break in curfew for several days. The Chakdara and Gulabad bazaars have remained closed for 10 days.Local people called upon the government and military authorities to provide some relief to the people suffering from the curfew. People in Timergara, Khall and Jandol complained that they were facing a shortage of medicines, food and other essential items because of curfew in Chakdara and blockade of the Peshawar-Timergara road since May 11.They said the curfew should be lifted because the road was now clear of militants. Meanwhile, people in Maidan area complained that hundreds of their domestic and farm animals had been killed by shelling or because of shortage of water and food.Abdul Malik, who had returned to Maidan on Friday after leaving his family in another area, told Dawn that carcasses of cattle left by people had caused stench in villages.‘I saw dozens of cows, buffaloes and goats dead in the streets, fields and houses. Some of them had been hit by mortar shells and the others had starved to death,’ he said.Some people also complained that their houses had been robbed. A large number of people of Maidan work abroad and their families had locked their homes and left the area when the operation was launched on April 26.Local people demanded that the government should form a commission to assess the losses suffered by them so that they could be compensated.