Body of Afghan national at Torkham handed over following pause in Operation Ghazab lil-Haq

KHYBER: The dead body of an Afghan national, lying at Zero Point on the Torkham border for the past several days, was finally handed over to Afghan authorities by a delegation of local tribal elders on Thursday. The development comes a day after Pakistan announced that it had decided on a “temporary pause” in the ongoing Operation Ghazab lil-Haq against the Afghan Taliban in view of Eidul Fitr and “at the request of brotherly Islamic countries”. The dead body was spotted by locals, who had recorded videos and reported the matter to security officials. The delegation of local elders, comprising Malak Tajuddin, Mufti Ejaz, Shah Khalid, Qari Jihad Shah, Qari Nazeem Gul and Saeed Khan, visited the Torkham border to retrieve the body. Khalid, told Dawn that the delegation remained in contact with the local security officials and Afghan delegates during the last week despite the security situation. He said that their Afghan counterparts on March 13 had acknowledged that the dead man was an Afghan national and a daily wager by profession. However, his body could not be retrieved due to prolonged consultations among the Afghan officials. Khalid said that he, along with his colleagues, did not give up their efforts and continued to persuade officials of both countries to retrieve and bury the body as soon as possible. He said that with a temporary pause in Operation Ghazab Lil Haq, they again made efforts, demanding that local authorities allow them to retrieve the body and hand it over to the Afghan authorities. “Our requests were finally accepted and we were allowed to reach the spot and hand over the body to Afghan authorities on purely humanitarian grounds,” he added. Khalid said that the dead body was badly decomposed and the delegation faced difficulty in placing it in a coffin.