Thaindian News

Islamabad, Sep 19 (DPA) Pakistani forces Saturday arrested a pro-government militia leader amid allegations that false information provided by him led to the killing of nine civilians in the militancy-plagued North Western Frontier province (NWFP).
Turkistan Bittani, who allied himself with the government after defecting from the Taliban, was taken into custody together with 24 heavily armed colleagues in Tank, the gateway to the lawless tribal district of South Waziristan.

“I am here at the Kor fort of the FC (paramilitary Frontier Corps) and I am with the army,” Bittani told DPA.

“I have asked all my 400 to 500 fighters to lay down the weapons, we will not resist to the security forces,” he said.

Bittani came into the limelight early this year when he openly challenged Baitullah Mehsud in his South Waziristan stronghold.

His men suffered heavy casualties when Mehsud’s men attacked his loyalists after the Taliban leader was killed in a US drone attack in early August.

Bittani is believed to have shared valuable information with the authorities that led to the arrests of hundreds of Mehsud’s men in Tank and neighbouring NWFP district of Dera Ismail Khan.

But his arrest came a day after some residents of Dera Ismail Khan alleged that the Pakistan Army had carried out extra-judicial killing of their family members, apparently on the information provided by Bittani and his men Sep 16.

“The soldiers came to our village with Bittani’s men and arrested nine people,” said Imtiaz Ahmed Khan, a resident of Wanda Khani area of the district.

The soldiers shot dead three of them on the spot while the rest they killed at some distance and dumped their bodies in the nearby fields, he said in Dera Ismail Khan on Friday.

The Autonomous Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has also accused Pakistani army and police of carrying out summary executions in Swat, another restive district, where government forces are fighting Taliban since late April.