DERA GHAZI KHAN: With the arrival of the winter, hundreds of nomad families with their huge stocks of sheep and camels are reaching various fertile areas of the division, especially those bordering with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Huge nomads influx a security risk in DG Khan
The nomads’ influx has ever been a burning issue for the locals for their alleged involvement in abduction and dacoity cases in addition to sale and purchase of the illegal weapons and display of arms and smuggling of contrabands, with all suspicious activities going on unchecked by the police of districts concerned. Residents believe that the law and order situation worsens during the winter due to the arrival of nomads who set up their camps in deserted areas away from the populated areas and villages without the permission of the police and administration. Their entry is made possible to the other province through traditional and old routes other than the inter-provincial highways where the check posts of the law-enforcement agencies are located.
Of these nomads, some belong to North Waziristan and even Afghanistan who keep on moving allegedly without having travelling documents and national identity cards. No operation was launched to de-weaponise them due to unknown reasons. It is a reality a number of poor nomad families move for grazing their livestock herds on which they depend for their livelihood. For this purpose, they shift themselves to the area with low winter pressure. In the guise of nomads, various criminal groups also shift here and involve in heinous crimes. The areas where nomads reaching are: Taunsa Sharif tehsil of DG Khan and Karor Lal Essan and Chaubara tehsils of Layyah. The nomad families move on tractor-trolleys while the herds and men move with sheep and livestock.
The residents say that screening of nomad families should be launched to curb crimes, especially in the bordering areas, and the police concerned should be ordered to collect the data. They also demanded cases should be registered against the people involved in illegal activities. They informed that these families moved through old routes and intentionally ignored regular routes to avoid data entries and registration at the inter-provincial borders where check posts were located.
They said massive deforestation occurred in these areas with the arrival of nomads who purchased trees at low rates and then smuggle them to KPK and Afghanistan as no check post of the Forest Department existed there. “The wood is used as a main source for domestic as well as commercial use in KPK where most areas have no supply of the natural gas,” they said. When contacted, the DG Khan DPO was not available for comments. However, a police officer said that they had not been directed to collect the data of the migrating nomads.
