LANDI KOTAL: Militants beheaded three activists of a peace committee and kidnapped four others during an attack on a house in Bara early on Monday, sources said.

A gang of armed men resorted to heavy firing before storming the house in Qambarabad area of Shalobar.

Jahangir Khan, a member of the Shalobar peace committee, told Dawn that they had found headless bodies of three of their colleagues, adding that four others had been taken away by the attackers.

The committee members tried to take the bodies to Peshawar and hold a protest demonstration on the Ring Road, but were stopped by security forces.

Mr Khan said security personnel had forcibly taken the bodies from them and shifted them to a Levies centre in Shahkas. He accused the Bara-based Lashkar-i-Islam (LI) of beheading and kidnapping the committee members. The outlawed group also took away the severed heads, he said.

Lashkar-i-Islam denied the allegation and said the group was adhering to a ceasefire it had agreed to after the administration reopened some important roads in Bara.

But the peace committee said they had been receiving threatening SMS from LI’s local commanders.

This was the first incident since the political administration reopened some roads linking Bara to Peshawar and Jamrud.

Locals feared the latest incident would affect peace efforts in Bara and return to the area of thousands of people displaced by the poor law and order.

Meanwhile, an activist of another peace committee was shot dead at Jalozai camp for internally displaced persons in Nowshera district.

Gulabat Khan, a member of the IDP Shura at the camp, told Dawn that gunmen on motorcycle fired at Mirza Khan, killing him on the spot.

He said Mirza Khan was an elder of the Akkakhel tribe and associated with the pro-government peace committee. He had been living at the camp along with his family for more than three years.

It was the first such incident in the camp.