HARIPUR: Two persons were killed when rivals exchanged fire over a property dispute in the limits of the city police station here on Tuesday evening.

The deceased were cousins and had been engaged in litigation over a property dispute.

The police said that two groups led by Sikandar Khan, a kabaddi player, and his first cousin, Akmal Khan, residents of Moonan village, exchanged fire near Ifitar time. As a result, Sikandar and Akmal died on the spot.

Poppy destroyed: The police have registered criminal cases against seven growers for cultivating banned poppy crop in the remote Nara Amazai union council of Ghazi tehsil, police said here on Tuesday.

The police contingents also destroyed the standing poppy crop from about 12 kanals of area, police and area people said.

Police said thaton intelligence reports about cultivation of the poppy crop in some hilly areas of union council Bait Gali, a police party headed by SHO Nara Amazai, Munir Hayat visited different far-off villages with halqa patwari and found poppy plants grown over an area of about 12 kanals of agriculture land in villages of Sunga, Devi and Bait Gali.

Police said that the poppy crop was at flowering stage in some areas while the others had the plants with fully developed poppy seed capsules but they were unripe. Police had collected the ownership information from the halqa patwari who was accompanying the police party.

Criminal cases were registered against seven persons under section 5 of the Control of Narcotics Substance Act. The growers of banned crop included Imran, Shahid, Asif, Fareed, Yousuf, Abdullah Khan and Noor Mohammad.

The police party later destroyed the crop and was trying to arrest the nominated accused as they fled the village while seeing the police.

Usually the poppy sowing starts with wheat crop harvest in these areas and the farmers of these UCs -- Nara Amazai and Bait Gali -- had long been growingpoppyas cash crop however during Gen Ziaul Haq’s era the government had banned its cultivation offering them incentives of alternative jobs, foreign visas and development package.

But according to area people the influential and political big shotsof the district benefited from the package and the poor farmers were deprived of their right of cultivation, which, they claimed, was their only source of livelihood in the hilly terrains.

Nara Amazai and Bait Gali are the two most remote union councils of district Haripur, situated across Tarbela lake with high ratio of poverty, illiteracy and under development. Having dozens of villages, these UCs have only land route that passes through Gadoon in district Swabi.

Majority of the villagers opt to travel to district headquarter by boat for their routine work while Ghazi and Gadoon are the nearest areas they prefer to visit for education, medical assistance and routine purchases.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2024